January’s machine of the month is a system designed to apply labels onto previously labelled beer bottles to provide additional information required for export markets. The labelling machines were produced for a well-known European brewery and installed on an existing packaging line, where the products were fed from rotary tables. The system manages the product flow to index and orientates each bottle in order to apply the new label in relation to the existing labels. This is achieved at 50 bpm.
The unit is based on our ALline 3-roller label applicator with twin belts for product spacing. A high speed scanner reads the bar code and identifies the position where the new labels are to be placed; in this case between the existing front and back labels. The robust mechanics and optimised logic of the application system allows the machine to reach high performance without compromising labelling accuracy.