The Zurich-based company, a world leader in lates customisation and on demand printing technologies for the pharmaceutical sector, says the upgrade enables pharma manufacturers to achieve an optimum blend of print quality and operating efficiencies, while also complying with current and forthcoming industry regulations.
New software ensures optimum performance by driving the printheads – which operate with high specification UV inks, extremely resistant to both smudging and scuffing – to produce print resolutions of “outstanding quality and clarity”.
Available in reel-to-reel or inline executions, the LabelJet system is a complete unit incorporating printer modules combined with a customised label feed, offering a full digital four colour (CMYK) approach.
The LabelJet can also accommodate different sizes of label web widths, and can print small characters such as a 2D data matrix code at A-grade levels.
“Variations in product, dosage strength, pack sizes and local market requirements traditionally create the need for hundreds of different packaging variants,” says Roy Taylor, managing director of Hapa UK and Ireland.
“With in-house late stage customisation, however, the need for huge inventory is largely alleviated: instead, companies can use blank or part-printed stock which, for the handling of complex production schedules with many short batches, delivers a host of benefits.”
With the Delegated Acts for the EU’s Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) set to be announced in 2014, the system also includes the intelligence to complete the current print cycle during line stoppages, thereby ensuring there is no impact on print quality or packaging line efficiency.
According to the Swiss company, reject products can potentially cause reconciliation issues for serialisation schemes in pharma packaging (“a key requirement of the FMD, with each product needing its own unique code to ensure traceability.
But with Hapa’s ‘stop-start’ technology, the waste of label stock will be “dramatically reduced”, along with the percentage of false rejects.
Benefits of the new Hapa 800 system include easier and less costly stockholding; elimination of obsolete packaging stock, resulting in “significantly reduced” waste; and the ability to save through bulk purchasing of blank materials.
