High-speed labeling solutions

What special requirements does the brewing and beverage industry have for product and packaging labeling? Not only must the highest filling speeds be taken into account, but also production environments with high humidity or water jets, individual marking requirements and the generally increasing demand for fully automated production. At BrauBeviale 2018, Bluhm Systeme showcased numerous systems that are fit for the process chains of the 21st century.

Labeling at high speed

Laser e-SolarMark HDM with beambending module. © Bluhm Systems

The e-SolarMark HDM marking laser realizes high-speed marking under the toughest operating conditions. At speeds of up to five meters per second, it marks paper and film labels cleanly and precisely with individual data. Varying text content such as date, time, consecutive numbering, serial numbers and more are quickly made available via the powerful PC controller, as well as graphic representations such as barcodes and logos. A lens protection glass and IP 65 degree of protection protect the coder against dust and water jets.

Control packaging line with Bluhmware

In the spirit of Industry 4.0, the Bluhmware software is able to control an entire packaging line fully automatically: At Bad Meinberger Mineralbrunnen, the marking, packaging, labeling and palletizing of 13 different Thomas Henry articles for 55 export countries in two different outer packaging variants were completely automated with the help of Bluhmware. All modules integrated in the packaging system were connected to the software and networked with each other. In addition to scanners, robots, unpackers, labelers, laser markers and printers, this also includes sensors, camera inspection systems, label print dispensers and palletizers. The Bluhmware then controls all of these modules fully automatically.

Apply individual color labels

But smaller labeling tasks can also be solved with systems from Bluhm. For example, with the semi-automatic Geset 141P printing and dispensing system, which consists of an Epson C7500 color label printer with a connected labeling unit. For example, many small batches of 30 to 1,000 units have to be provided with individual color labels for brewing kegs. With the Geset 141P, a high-quality print result is guaranteed despite numerous different print files.

In addition to semi-automatic labeling with individual color labels, Bluhm now also has a fully automatic version in its range: the Geset 121 Epson labels round products and consists of an Alpha HSM label dispenser and an Epson color label printer. This makes it particularly suitable for labeling round containers such as bottles, cans, buckets or canisters with a diameter of up to 100 millimetres.