Last year, Walmart, the American giant of retail store, launched new barcode rules on its cases (Article HERE) to reduce the common time-consuming storehouse problem: finding the barcode and the product identification on the side of the box. Of course, this can affect the efficiency of the whole supply chain (time) and errors might be more frequent.
To tackle this issue, the company decided to introduce new barcode regulation for its shops, requiring the boxes to be printed on four sides, plus the top, meaning five barcodes in total to appear on the case. Moreover, product information (variable data such as batch number, Best By date, quantity, Vendor name, etc.) as well as the brand and sub-brand with their logo, should also appear on the outter case (eg. Below). These new regulations also included the shrink wrapped trays to be displayed on the shelves.
If the idea was first introduced by Walmart, other players of the sector such as the German company Aldi, followed the initiative. This means that there are new opportunities to cease for coding and marking companies, especially in the retail sector (food and beverage) to offer solutions that can meet the new barcode requirements, without compromising on efficiency, time, and without driving costs too high. ALE piezo inkjet printers are up to these new challenges.
How can ALE printers answer this application?
Thanks to its expectional connectivity (up to 8 heads simultaneously) ALE's MasterHD controller appears to be the best solution for this kind of application. In fact, all four sides of the machine can be printed simultaneously. The same message is entered once in the controller and printed in one pass, meaning great time-saving for the customer. The CodeX software allows functions like reverse texts for printing on the right direction on all sides.
Thanks to the Twin-Time zone option, it is also possible to print easily non-opposite sides of the boxes from a simple controller. All you need is a simple device to turn the box 90° on the line (or L-shape production line).
ALE printers are capable of printing logos and HD images on porous and non-porous (glossy cardboards) surfaces at a resolution of 180 Dpi. This means that customers can print with high-quality their logos to improve product identification and also increase their visibility on the shelf with good brand image. With ALE colour printers range (TC-TWIN with two-spot colours and COLOUR series in CMYK) customers can even create customised and more impactful packaging, with logos or texts in colours for example.