The coding and marking segment – otherwise known as ‘product identification’ – refers to the practice of putting dates, barcodes, logos, and other images onto products such as food containers (‘primary Packaging’) and the cardboard boxes and cartons that they are packed in (‘secondary packaging’).
Coding for primary package
Primary package marking (such as the date code on a milk bottle) is typically done with CIJ printers (continues inkjet).
Coding for secondary package
Printing on cartons was done with mechanically operated ‘valvejet’ DoD inkjet printers, but is now Increasingly a piezoelectric inkjet application because of its superior speed and resolution.
Low-cost thermal inkjet (TIJ) printers are also gaining acceptance in the coding and marking market. Printers are small and portable, and often networked to the factory’s production system so that the barcodes and other data they print can be changed remotely.
Substrates
Inkjet printers can also print on various substrates from porous to non-porous. Typically, these printheads print oil-based ink onto cardboard or paper and solvent-based or UV-curable ink onto plastic packaging.
