We recently delivered a flexible offline labelling solution to Nowocoat that automates the labelling of their products, which saves time, ensures consistently high labelling quality and frees up employees for other tasks.
Nowocoat Industrial A/S specialises in the development and production of
innovative, functional and durable coatings for mineral, wood and metal surfaces.
Since the beginning in 1861, Nowocoat Industrial A/S has been run by experienced and passionate specialists and is today a modern, growth-oriented company with a strong focus on a sustainable future.
Nowocoat has a wide product range consisting of many different quality coatings that come in pails of different sizes ranging in volume, height and diameter. The labelling of the products used to be done manually with an employee putting a label on the front and back of the pails.
In such a manual labelling process, there can easily occur factors that can cause delays, for example when the label won't come off the backing paper, tears or when the label is applied incorrectly/skewed and the product has to be relabelled. All in all, this can result in extra handling time per pail/bucket, which has a direct impact on productivity and workflow.
Nowocoat therefore wanted to make the labelling process smarter, faster and more accurate, as well as free up the employees who had previously handled the manual labelling for other tasks.
Jakob Hindkjær, COO, and Claus Iversen, Maintenance Manager at Nowocoat, consulted with us to find the right solution for the job.
To ensure efficient and consistent labelling on both sides of the buckets, our basic labelling system for pails with a specially developed vacuum applicator unit proved to be the ideal solution.
It's a modular solution that is particularly easy to integrate and adapt to different needs. The vacuum applicator ensures fast and smooth application of the labels with high accuracy for consistently high labelling quality.
"We chose the solution to be shaped like a U. That way, the employee operating the machine can both load and unload the conveyor from the same position. This makes everything even more efficient and easier for the employee," says Claus Iversen, Maintenance Manager at Nowocoat A/S.
The products are placed in the infeed, where the handle is raised and placed in the handle holder. A separator ensures that the pails are fed to the applicator one at a time and at the correct distance from each other. A stopping unit stops the product in the correct position in front of the applicator, while the label is placed on the driven belts and the applicator surrounds the product so that the labels are applied evenly on both sides.
The two labelling units on either side can be used for large and small labels and can label both full and empty pails/buckets.
The solution is an offline solution that is not part of a product line. The pails are labelled before they are filled and further handled. This gives Nowocoat maximum flexibility and allows them to use the labelling system for many different products. The solution can handle buckets from 2.5 to 25 litres.
"It helps us a lot that the labelling is now automated. (...) Before there was an employee manually applying labels to the pails, now it can be done in half the time." Claus Iversen says.
At Nowocoat, the solution is primarily used for 3, 5, 10 and 20 litre pails. The changeover to other sizes is quick and easy thanks to an intuitive control panel.
With the solution, labelling is now twice as efficient as before, it ensures better and uniform labelling and frees up employees for other tasks in production.
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