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Coffee producer scores coding efficiencies

Since the installation of new ink-jet printers for coding steel cans and paperboard trays, Massimo Zanetti Beverage has greatly reduced its unplanned downtime.

BEST-BEFORE CODES. Continuous ink-jet printers at Massimo Zanetti Beverage are used for printing best-before codes on steel cans
BEST-BEFORE CODES. Continuous ink-jet printers at Massimo Zanetti Beverage are used for printing best-before codes on steel cans

The newest of four Hitachi  continuous ink-jet printers to be installed at Massimo Zanetti Beverage’s Suffolk, VA, plant arrived first quarter of this year. The Model PXR produces best-before dates on paperboard trays or corrugated cases holding pouched coffee.

Elsewhere in the plant, the other Hitachi printers are used for coding both steel cans and paperboard trays.

“Other systems I’ve used require a lot of maintenance and operator intervention,” says Mike Barnes, director of maintenance and engineering at the Suffolk plant. “With these printers from Hitachi, day in/day out maintenance is a simple purge and shut down cycle. They’re basically maintenance-free. We run 24 hours per day five days a week. We do a quick inspection of the print head on Sunday and clean if needed. Then we run the entire week without any issues.”

Also appealing, says Barnes, is the quality and legibility of the coding that the Hitachi units deliver.

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