Logopak has supplied PepsiCo’s Little Island plant in Cork, with two specialist labelling machines to identify pallets of soft drink concentrate as they are loaded by robot. This provides production flexibility by allowing the pallets from different production lines and with different products to be directed to different shrink-wrapping and transit labelling lines and caters also for downtime during maintenance or repair.
The Logopak 804T machines operate within the safety cage of the robot palletisers and attach pre-printed bar code labels to the base of the pallets, using a purpose-built applicator that folds the label round the two outer faces of a corner block.
To guarantee adhesion on the rough timber, Logopak also designed the labelling material specifically for the purpose, using a combination of aluminium and paper for extra strength, together with a high grab adhesive.
“Positive label placement, the adhesive and a high strength label provides security and a format that can be read dependably for the transit labelling machines,” says Logopak UK general manager Wilson Clark.
As the pallets enter the stretchwrapping machines the pre-printed labels are scanned and the information used to look up further data and works order information from which the main GS1 barcode shipping labels are to be created. After tracking the pallet through the stretchwrapper to the labelling station, the line PLC passes the labelling data to Logopak 920PF print and apply labelling machines, which label the pallet on two adjacent faces.
