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Packaging line modifications for serialization

Line serialization, while a significant investment in time and money, is less strategically taxing than sharing the data internally from each line and plant up through the enterprise, and with your trading partners.

Regardless, all agree there are many things that have to happen at the plant and line level to succeed.  Accurate serial number commissioning and aggregation are the realm of the plant manager.  This means every machine on every line has to be able to communicate the same standardized information to plant IT and through to the enterprise.

WARNING: If you start your project at the packaging-line level, you will get bogged down when it comes to moving data.

Establish package coding requirements independent of hardware or software. This way, teams at plants located in other parts of the world can tap into local resources better equipped to meet their specific needs. 

There are two types of equipment necessary to physically place serial numbers on the package and then verify accuracy:

Printing equipment—This includes ink-jet, laser, or other technologies to mark directly on the package or label web to apply the serial number and 2D barcode.

Vision systems—These examine the package label and code to verify the marking is legible and correct before clearing the serialization line and plant system to signal back to the central database that the serial number has been commissioned.

There is much debate about installing new equipment ideally suited to serialization (“rip and replace”) or making do with current machinery by upgrading control modules to accommodate the serialization requirements.

Plant-level engineers would prefer to keep as many existing machines as possible—especially important to avoid getting bogged down in regulatory revalidation.

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