Print power: Markem-Imaje launches 9400 Series

The 9400 family, including the 9410 and 9450 models, saves on manufacturing costs and optimizes the customer’s overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), claims the firm.

Markem-Imaje said a premium customized service agreement for 9400 printers secures an 99.9% availability for five years.

Other features include up to 20% reduction on consumable and energy consumption against comparable printers and no line shut down is required when changing consumables.

Backing up claims​

Arnaud Laugier, director EMEA marketing, told FoodProductionDaily.com that the reduction was calculated versus competitors’ products.

“So if you compare the performance of our printers in standard applications versus our core competitors they were the results that we were able to perform,” ​he said.

On the availability claim, he said: “We commit with a specific contract that we have with our customers to guarantee the product will run during 99.9% of the time. The big advantage for the industry is you will have no production line stop due to the coding equipment. We have improved as before we were not as this level.” ​

Black, colour, permanent, thermochromic or high-contrast inks are available and inks with “tracers” for anti-counterfeiting can be offered.

There are a choice of codes (barcodes, Datamatrix, QR), logos and alphanumeric texts with different sizes and resolutions.

Different substrates​

Laugier said the printer is suited for different types of substrates in the food and beverage industry.

“We have some dedicated models for some specific applications but the 9450 is really dedicated for the most common applications in food and beverage,” ​he said.

“They require reliable printers, easy to integrate and use but also they are not just looking for a printer to code a best before date but also doing more. That is the reason why we introduced the mark and read functionality enabling the industry to double check that the code is correctly printed.​

“If you need to recall a product it can be very costly. So thanks to our partnership with Cognex we introduced a specific camera which would be able to check if the code is correctly printed or not.”  ​

The Mark and Read realtime vision system helps check code integrity on the printer screen to prevent recalls.

Promotional coding has also been introduced for marketing purposes, said Laugier.

“It is one additional functionality which will enable the industry to customize his relationship with the end-user, that is to say that he can print an unique code, enabling him to create a specific link with his direct customers and create this intimacy.”   ​

9410 prints up to 4.4 m/s, 71 dpi, 9450 prints up to 6.6 m/s, 71 and 115 dpi.

Printer and printhead are IP56 rated (IP66 is an option) for pressurized washdown and operation in the most demanding environments.

Markem-Imaje also launched coding machines for the food, beverage, dairy and extrusion markets including the CIJ range, the SmartLase C 350 HD laser coder and the TIJ (thermal inkjet) 1050 and 1200.

The firm is a subsidiary of the US-based Dover Corporation and offers inkjet, thermal transfer, laser and print and apply label systems.