Custom Packaging (CONT’D FROM PAGE 1 )
master digital press. The company was acquired by Hood Container Corp. in 2019. A request last year from a well-known name brand re- tailer provided a pivotal opportunity for expansion into a market segment that previously had never been consid- ered. The retailer was looking for a way to digitally print 15 digit sequential barcodes on its one-color kraft shipping containers. “The application to do sequential barcoding on a finished box had not been done before so it was brand new territory,” Darling says. “The challenge was how we implement it and solve this request to meet the customer’s needs. And as you know, in this industry we are all cus- tomer driven.” The initial thought was to print the barcodes on the Bar- berán Jetmaster, but that would have tied up a six-color machine for one-color printing. In looking for alternative solutions, Darling came across DPi (Digital Print Inc.), a Fort Worth, Texas, company that builds digital printers and ink- jet retrofits for industrial brown box. Retrofitting A Flexo DPi’s solution was to retrofit one of Custom Packaging’s flexo folder-gluers with a one-color black inkjet head. The machine is a three-color mini Martin 618 that had a fourth unused print station. That particular machine was chosen because it could run the customer’s four box sizes and the inkjet printer could be easily installed, accessed and main- tained and it was the only machine that the plant had time
on to run the order. “Our flexos are running 10 hours a day, most of them two shifts and occasionally on Saturdays. It’s the only machine that we were diverse enough on and had time to run it,” Brian Tuggle, Custom Packaging Vice Pres- ident of Sales, says. The inkjet head sits at the fourth print station. The DPi controller is built into a cart that contains the ink canister, keyboard and computer monitor and can be rolled in and DPi installed the inkjet head on a three-color mini Martin 618 that had a fourth unused print station.
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June 29, 2020
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