When the pharmaceuticals company in Thailand name Sriprasit Pharmaceutical wanted a solution that it could implement worldwide for coding, marking and printing data matrices on its product packaging, it evaluated a range of solutions. The new solution had to meet a number of demanding criteria for print quality and commercial viability. It would have to be space-efficient since it would be mounted on the packaging lines. In addition, it had to achieve high printing speeds, generate human-readable text and numbers as well as machine readable barcodes and data matrices. Among coding and marking technologies available were the traditional crash numbering systems, laser-based systems and inkjet.
Sriprasit Pharmaceutical selected the inkjet solution from HSAJet Inks & Printers based on its MiniTouch and MiniKey advanced controller and HP inks developed with HP Specialty Printing Systems (HP SPS) as its worldwide recommended solution. This solution met other important criteria for Sriprasit Industry including ease of use, minimal downtime, a small footprint on the packaging line, fast-drying inks and reliability. “The amount of data now required on pharmaceutical packaging has grown considerably in the last decade,” said Mr. Jumnong, technical head of IE Team SPS Pharma at Sriprasit .“Batch and lot numbers, expiry dates, barcodes and data matrices mean that printing and verification systems have to be extremely versatile. We also wanted a single solution that could print on cartons and foil substrates.” |
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The inkjet coding on secondary packaging complements the tamper evidence solutions used on primary packagingoffering an enhanced level of product security, as it is estimated that ten percent of all pharmaceuticals worldwide are counterfeit. While regional variations can be enormous, global providers, like Sriprasit Pharmaceutical, are highly active in ensuring that their products are easily recognisable and difficult to counterfeit. “One of our special requirements was that we wanted to incorporate a randomly generated serial number in thedata matrix,” Koll continued. “We worked with HSAJet which adapted its.
Sriprasit plant has a couple of coding lines for carton production and blister packs, each equipped with the HSAJet system and using HP inks. The different requirements of printing on cartons and aluminium mean that a different ink formulation is used. Cartons are coated, to protect the print, but a small area is left uncoated to ensure optimal ink adhesion when the codes are printed. For blister packs, the aluminium has a coating that enhances adhesion. It is essential that the ink is dry prior to the verification inspection. While the ink on the cartons will dry in the atmosphere, a small fan heater is used to accelerate drying on the non-porous blister packs. |
