Barcode Labels and Inkjet Code on Plywood
PREVIOUS PROCESS:
A large producer of plywood and lumber products needed to comply with their retail customer's demand to place UPC-A barcodes on individual pieces of plywood.
In addition, they wanted to print product type and grade on the side of each board to ensure the product identification was correctly stacked by type and grade.
ID TECHNOLOGY PROPOSAL OR SOLUTION:
ID Technology installed a Label Printer Applicator to print and apply UPC-A barcode labels on each plywood board.
A custom environmental enclosure was installed to isolate the label printer applicator from the contaminants and debris present in the production facility.
The label printer applicator was mounted to apply labels to the bottom of the board and included system status beacon. The printer applicator is integrated with an Allen-Bradley PLC that sends the data sting to the label printer applicator. The UPC-A barcode changes dependent upon the product type and grade.
A small character inkjet printer was installed to print product type and product grade codes on the side of individual boards. The location of the bar code on the side of the plywood differs with each grade code. If a board has been incorrectly stacked or sorted, it is easy to distinguish by the mismatched codes down the side of the stack.
ID Technology created the software interface between the Allen-Bradley PLC and the inkjet lumber grade printer that transfers different print messages based on product type and product grade.
