Coders critical to OEE

2 January 2013



Lynda Searby finds out how current advancements in coding and marking technology are helping companies to deliver against their overall efficiency objectives


Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is not a new concept. If Wikipedia is to be believed, it has been around since the 1960s, when it was developed by Seiichi Nakajima, the Japanese father of ‘Total Productive Maintenance’.

However, in recent years, economic pressure has meant OEE has taken on greater importance, as manufacturers of FMCG products strive to achieve cost efficiencies and increased production with little or no impact on quality.

“We believe OEE as an overall business metric has gained further prominence in recent years,” confirms Mike Hughes, MD of packaging line automation and control specialist AutoCoding Systems.

Similarly, Steve Ryan, UK and OEM sales manager with Allen Coding Systems, notes that customers across all territories are expecting as close to 100% reliability as possible. “We’ve seen the expectation level for performance increase significantly over the last two to four years,” he says.

And it’s not just large, blue chip businesses who are interested in OEE either. Charles Randon, product manager with Linx Printing Technologies, says: “We see that OEE is a concern to all customers, not just blue chip companies, because the economic environment is driving the desire for cost saving.”

Nor is OEE a measure that relates exclusively to coding and marking equipment. When they measure OEE, companies are considering the effectiveness of the complete line, not just the coder, which is just one piece of equipment in that line.

Still, the performance of the coder is a critical part of the OEE equation, particularly as, historically, it was often responsible for line stoppages.

“Factories frequently found it difficult to carry out the recommended ‘best practice’ maintenance on coding machines,” explains James Orford, UK sales manager with Domino. “Occasionally, therefore, some coding machines went unattended for hours and even days and consequently struggled to start up effectively first time, resulting in regular downtime.”

Consistent method

Start-up, servicing and set-up have moved on a lot since then, but still, while coding equipment won’t be the limiting factor of line efficiency in terms of speed, it might be in terms of reliability.

Broadly speaking, the OEE of a line can be measured via either a manual or an automated system. “Companies with multiple production lines need a consistent method of measuring OEE, and the higher the potential benefit, the more likely they are to justify automated OEE,” says Linx’s Charles Randon.

“These customers want OEE for all equipment though, not just coding and marking equipment measures,” he says. “This is why some customers still use manual reporting, as not all equipment can work with a single automated measurement system.”

Randon adds that smaller companies will rarely have an automated method of measuring OEE, but will have good knowledge of which of their equipment components causes downtime, how frequently and for how long.

AutoCoding Systems, which has strong links with all the major coding, marking and packaging equipment companies and a strategic partnership with Domino, counters that it is possible to design a system that monitors all pieces of equipment in the line.

“To measure the OEE of coding and marking equipment, and other packaging line equipment effectively, it is preferable to use an automated system,” says Mike Hughes. “It is only possible to dynamically report on how a piece of equipment is performing by having a networked connection to that equipment. The AutoCoding solution is centred upon data acquisition that is input/output based. This allows for the simplest method of capture for signals and state conditions from the line’s equipment without attempting to over-engineer the environment.”

To measure the OEE, the AutoCoding system polls the equipment to check it is there and it is healthy. Standard software components are used to transpose data into databases and professional reporting environments that provide dashboards and graphs to visualise how the equipment, line or factory is performing.

“Companies have the ability to look at overall factory performance and drill down to individual line performance, for example, by device, day or shift,” says Hughes.

Availability matters

The usual measure of performance for coding and marking equipment is ‘availability’. It is important though, to define what exactly is meant by ‘availability’, as it may mean different things to different people.

Randon defines availability as “the percentage of time the coder is actually coding divided by the total time that the customer wants the coder to be coding.

“However,” he adds, “this can exclude scheduled maintenance activities, even though they reduce the amount of time available for coding.”

Markem-Imaje’s strategic project manager, James Dewey, defines availability as “uptime divided by (uptime plus downtime).

Therefore, he explains: “If, in a 72-hour period, your coder had 71.5 hours of uptime and half an hour of downtime, its availability would be 99.3%.”

Markem-Imaje’s latest generation coders actually do this calculation for you, and display availability rates on a touchscreen.

Not only can the AutoCoding system measure the availability of coding and marking equipment, but it also identifies reasons for non-availability of equipment.

“For instance,” says Hughes, “if a line is not scheduled for production, through no fault of any of the equipment, this time should be taken out of the equation, otherwise the data would not be meaningful.”

Tom Hawkins, sales director with Videojet Technologies UK, agrees that when measuring availability, it is important to distinguish between ‘planned’ and ‘unplanned’ downtime.

“Within the time a line is open for production, there will always be periods of planned downtime – whether to carry out scheduled maintenance or change packaging – that eat into production time,” he says. “Then there is unplanned downtime, when something unexpected comes along. That’s the downtime customers don’t like.”

It is primarily this last type of downtime that coding and marking equipment designers are working to eliminate through technological developments.

Continuous performance

While advancements have been across the board – on CIJ, TIJ, thermal transfer and laser – arguably the biggest leaps have been made in CIJ, which also had the most ground to make up.

“CIJ reliability has come a long way in the last few years,” says Markem-Imaje’s James Dewey. “If you look back 15 years, it was perceived as messy, temperamental and smelly. Now, decantable consumables have become cartridge based, printheads are self-cleaning, and maintenance operations have been minimised.”

With Markem-Imaje’s latest 9200 series of inkjet printers, Dewey says it has introduced ‘market-leading’ maintenance intervals of up to 14,000 hours.

“We’ve redesigned the ink circuits so the filters don’t need changing for up to 18 months and the pump is changed at 14,000 hours,” he explains. “It’s about reducing stress on key wear parts but keeping performance levels high.”

Additionally, Markem-Imaje has recently introduced a sensor that can detect whether a printer is likely to be giving poor quality print, enabling users to avoid production of scrap.

Videojet, however, claims that its 1000 series, which was built in response to customer demand for minimal and infrequent maintenance, matches these maintenance intervals.

“We engineered a modular system that requires only one component – the ‘core’ – to be replaced every 14,000 hours,” says Hawkins. He claims this was a quantum improvement over both Videojet and its competitors’ scheduled maintenance intervals, which were typically 2,000 hours.

“The core contains the whole of the printer’s ink management system, so every 14,000 hours we effectively give the printer a new ‘wet side’,” says Hawkins. “All other components are brought together in this element and are changed, not left to fail.”

The Linx 7900 CIJ is also said to offer longer service intervals and, unlike other printers, only the filtration and ink need to be changed, with other components designed to be ‘fit for life’. “This makes scheduled maintenance quicker and less costly,” says Randon.

Shorter scheduled maintenance times are also a feature of the Linx CJ400, which can be serviced by the customer in minutes without even turning the printer off, according to Linx.

At Domino, Orford says product development has been all about making machines service-free – eliminating the need for manual intervention so that less downtime is needed for maintenance.

Allen Coding says it has developed many additional features across its entire range that enable its coding machines to better deliver against OEE objectives.

“For example, our CIJ systems have a fully automated purge function, ensuring equipment readiness on start-up,” says Steve Ryan. “The thermal transfer range has increased heat control to the thermal bars, facilitating extended shelf life and consistent print quality. Plus our thermal inkjet printers benefit from an extremely cost-effective cartridge solution with minimal ink usage.”


Linx 7900 CIJ: only the filtration and ink need to be changed Linx Allen Coding’s Hitachi RX-S printhead technology is said to facilitate stable drop placement and print quality Allen Coding The Sauven 6000RPlus inkjet printer is pitched as a maintenance-free alternative to ‘complex’ CIJ printers Sauven Videojet 1000 series: printers said to deliver ‘greater intervals between scheduled maintenance’ than previous models Videojet Markem-Imaje’s 9232 displays availability rates via the operator interface Markem-Imaje

Videojet Videojet
Linx Linx
Allen Coding Allen Coding
Markem-Imaje Markem-Imaje
Sauven Sauven


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