With Markem-Imaje's CIJ marking systems and related consumables, Mebra Plastik Italia improves the efficiency and sustainability of its processes while reducing costs.
Over the last half century, the company has produced millions of metres of pipes and spirals in technopolymers for the passage of medium and low pressure fluids, exporting Made in Italy quality all over the world. We are talking about Mebra Plastik Italia (a global player in the extrusion market), with which Markem-Imaje has recently collaborated to supply a combination of hardware and software systems for continuous ink jet (CIJ) marking and related consumables.
Thanks to this collaboration, Mebra Plastik Italia - which exports 40,000 variants of plastic tubes to 80 countries - has halved its printer fleet from 30 to 15 machines, with a significant reduction in costs and ink consumption.
As Nicola Marchesin, Mebra's IT Manager, points out: "The partnership with Markem-Imaje has been particularly successful from an environmental point of view, helping us to reduce waste and energy consumption, while optimising production, storage and deliveries: all key elements for a family-run company that has long been committed to protecting the environment and improving its sustainability KPIs.
Delivery in practice
In addition to using up to 30 inkjet printers for its production needs, Mebra made little use of automation, which limited its ability to optimise processes and verify marking and coding quality. Extremely low margins, complex regulations with multiple and internationally varying variables, and a production line that often could not be stopped once started, were further challenges to overall improvement, production and sustainability. Markem-Imaje, long regarded as the international benchmark in coding and marking for the extrusion market, identified the solution that would allow Mebra to not only halve the number of printers for the same production level, but also to automate the coding process, reduce the error rate to zero and reduce the use of consumables, while introducing quality control, traceability and anti-counterfeiting management.
Mebra installed the 9450 EC continuous inkjet printer, designed specifically for the extrusion industry, which is capable of printing high quality codes on tubes as small as 1.1 mm in diameter, for up to 3,000 km of cable, without the need to clean the print head. MI also replaced the previously used inks with a single, multi-purpose silver ink, eliminating the waste associated with using different coloured consumables. This ink adheres to any substrate and guarantees the same contrast and readability on light and dark surfaces.
Markem-Imaje has also integrated its CoLOS Packaging Intelligence software suite with Mebra's production line and ERP systems to digitise, automate and audit production processes, providing data and insights to optimise productivity and other key KPIs, starting with sustainability.
Working in synergy with Mebra's MES software system, CoLOS ensures that the right code is automatically printed on the right tube. This ultimately leads to an increase in overall efficiency, with reduced line set-up times and the introduction of new solutions such as automated metrics.
