Ivor Shaw Found Millions of Reasons to Reinvest in Imaje Coding Equipment

Producing approximately 300,000 products a day across the range, Ivor Shaw’s coding requirements demanded reliable and fast equipment with the ability to consistently print literally millions of characters, at speed, every day. Using their unique multi-head, multi-jet technology, Imaje equipment met the criteria.

Runcorn (PRWEB) April 14, 2006 -- Established in the UK for over 40 years, Ivor Shaw Ltd is one of the leading privately owned manufacturers of single user medical devices and customer procedure packs. Under the brand name of Pennine Healthcare, Ivor Shaw supply their products to healthcare providers throughout the UK as well as having an established network of 78 overseas distributors serving a global market.

The 12-year business relationship enjoyed by Ivor Shaw with Imaje bears witness to the versatility of the Imaje range of printers and their ability to meet Ivor Shaw’s diverse coding demands.

Speed is of the essence and the unique multi-head, multi-jet technology of the S8 Master and the twin-jet technology of the new 9030 compact printer ensure these inkjet printers are up to the job.

To keep up with throughput of the packaging machines, the Imaje printers must operate at full capacity speed. The twinhead, twinjet S8 Master prints product description, batch codes and lot numbers for traceability purposes onto pre-printed materials (paper and polythene). This printer typically prints approximately 1.85 million characters per hour (equating to approximately 24 million characters per day).

Ivor Shaw have also recently invested in three twinjet 9030 printers, one of which is used to code similar products on another packaging line. Using a single twinjet printhead, this printer operates in forward and reverse mode to print around 1.7 million characters per hour.

The company were so impressed with the efficiency and ease of use of the 9030, they are replacing their ageing Imaje S4 plus twinjet printers with the new technology of the 9000 series. The S4 plus printers have been used for the past 11 years to print simple codes onto polythene pouches.

Imaje printers are also utilised in other applications including printing graduations onto PVC medical tubing running on an extrusion line and printing text and brand name information of circular ventilation filters.

Plant & Development Manager, Darryl Orridge, said, “Our coding applications call for speed, flexibility and reliability. We had already experienced the reliability of the S4s and S8s and the 9030s have exceeded our expectations. The twin jet option on the 9030 gives us the ability to print a large amount of text at speed and, with the Imaje Message Centre, operators can download messages quickly and simply; imperative when there are an average of 25-30 message changes per day. The robust compact printhead on the 9030 and the highly flexible umbilical ensures that the printer can be fitted easily into our packaging line.” Mr Orridge was also impressed with the new nozzle rinsing system of the 9030. “Intervention has been greatly reduced. Operators just switch the printer on, select a message and leave the machine to run. Cleaning is kept to a minimum and, as the sealed ink cartridges can be replaced without stopping the printer, downtime is also kept to a minimum.”

Elizabeth Fothergill, Ivor Shaw Managing Director, stated, “This is an exciting time for us, where we have implemented new technology and lean manufacturing techniques to ensure we are competitive in the world market whilst providing first class service and working towards making Pennine Healthcare a global brand.”

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