Durable Marking Blog

Steel Stamp Dies for Pharmaceutical Package Imprinting

When you need to mark a large quantity of pharmaceutical sample packages and need to replace old steel stamp dies Durable Mecco can deliver.

Amcor Pharmaceutical Contract Packaging in Bethlehem, PA, formerly Alcan Packaging, is in the business of providing contract packaging for pharmaceutical companies.  They regularly need to mark a wide variety of sizes and shapes of packaging as well as ones made from numerous different materials.

Durable Mecco supplies OEM replacement steel stamping dies that easily fit in the existing ‘pouching’ machines that produce the single dose type sample packs so commonly requested by Amcor’s customers.

Avery	Jones	Kwik-Lok	T-Type	Utility	Arenco
Norwood	Markem	Doboy	Concave	Schmidt	Open Date

The sharp and flat faced steel stamping dies are used to imprint product lot number and expiration date on pharmaceutical sample pouches.  Two steel stamp dies are used in conjunction to mark a set of two pouches as they pass through the marking and sealing system.  This is a high volume packaging operation where accuracy, consistency, and repeatability are crucial.  Traceability for pharmaceutical packages is missions critical and needs to meet federal regulations. 

“Durable Mecco has provided outstanding services to Alcan and since the acquisition by Amcor and that service level has increased to meet every challenge.  We are especially pleased by your willingness to reach deep into the supply chain and clarify our requirements to sub-contractors who supply the base materials used to make the steel stamping dies”, states Roy Ramsay, Amcor Buyer.  

Drastically Lower Costs of Industrial Ink Jet Fluids

Everyone knows how annoying and expensive it is to buy proprietary ink cartridges for your home printers. Printer companies sell the printers cheap and try to force you to buy their brand name and very expensive replacement cartridges.

Now imagine if you had a factory full of industrial printers used to mark thousands of packages and parts a day. Imagine the expense required to maintain dozens of high end industrial ink jet printers in a high production environment. And then think about being forced to buy the OEM replacement inks at exorbitant prices.

Jack Knight, Assistant Plant Manager, of Contract Packaging, Inc. in Covington, GA doesn't have to imagine this scenario, he lives it. Mr. Knight now works with Durable Mecco to reduce his costs and the maintenance of their industrial ink jets printers by purchasing DurableOEM alternative ink jet fluids.

Mr. Knight says that "Durable Mecco made the transition from expensive OEM inks to replacement inks seamless and easy. There was no down time at all and we have seen no drop in mark quality or increase in equipment maintenance."

Durable Mecco can be your single source ink jet solution for all of our replacement inks, including continuous ink jet (CIJ), Drop-On-Demand (DOD), Hi-Resolution, and Hot Melt Wax inks. Durable Mecco offers the broadest line of direct replacement and custom formulated fluids for all the major OEM printers including Videojet®, Imaje®, Diagraph®, Linx®, Marsh®, Domino®, Willett® and more.

The reason that Contract Packaging, and many others, enjoy high quality marks using Durable Mecco inks is that the ink jet fluids are precision formulated and put through a stringent filtration process that follows the strictest industry standards which reduces clogging of the ink nozzles. As a result, customers get 100% utilization out of Durable Mecco fluids and enjoy a 33% longer shelf life than many OEM ink jet fluids.

Mr. Knight states that "we purchase both OEM alternative ink jet fluids as well as alternatives toNorwood hot stamping ribbons and foils and we have seen upwards of a 50% savings in the cost of these consumables - and that makes a difference to our bottom line with no adverse effect on marking quality or ink jet equipment operation. Durable Mecco has been very easy to work with and continues to provide us with a high level of customer support and service. Durable Mecco can ship these items to us in less than 48 hours so we know we will never get caught short and not be able to run production because of an ink jet issue."

"Durable Mecco was able to test different inks on our substrates in order to determine the best ink adhesion, abrasion resistance, and darkest print density for ease of reading. They also offer service and repair of OEM equipment, including preventive maintenance service and in-house print head service for many of the common printers so they are indeed a good partner for us and our marking needs," explains Mr. Knight.

Call us at 866-344-7721 to see how Durable Mecco can help you lower you costs of OEM ink jet fluids as well increase ink jet equipment uptime.

Durable Mecco at Eastec 2010

From May 25 to 27 in Springfield, MA we exhibited at the Eastec trade show sponsored by SME.  Durable was pleased to display a variety of marking technologies including dot peen, impact press, steel stamps, roll dies, and one of our newest additions the DuraDot inline CNC marker.

While overall attendance seemed to be slightly down from years past we noticed a more focused and project ready group of people walking the show to see if the exhibitors had solutions for their projects.  One big difference we heard from almost everyone was that there were budgets and that projects were being given the green light to move forward.

We generated a large number of leads looking for solutions across the entire product line.  There also did not seem to be any trend in terms of industry - we received leads from automotive, electronic, consumer goods, metal fabrication, aerospace, and others.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth and we look forward to helping you make your mark!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make an Impact with Durable Presses

Value Added Engineering Impacts Product Marking, Productivity And Plant Safety

Most companies have long relied on standard engineering practices to guide their engineers as they work on product and tooling designs. Recent trends indicate that engineering guidelines are no longer relegated to product and tooling functions. Now many companies and industries are expanding these engineering guidelines to include standards for product marking.

As governmental regulations and market forces dictate new product traceability and quality standards, many industries seek out product marking specialists with which to partner. One such marking specialist is Durable Mecco, Inc. based in Franklin Park, Illinois. Durable Mecco's focus is on industrial marking applications utilizing impact presses, steel stamps, steel type, numbering heads, dot peen markers, and accessories. Durable Mecco's technical expertise and engineering capabilities were recently enhanced when it acquired traditional marking products specialist Mecco / M.E. Cunningham based in Pittsburgh, PA. Durable Mecco's value added engineering capability has proven to be a critical resource for many companies and industries with a wide variety of custom marking applications.

Impact Presses Increase Productivity

Durable Mecco's impact presses, manual presses or pneumatic presses, generate force via the compression and release of an impact spring. High volume repetitive indent marking applications are best handled with the use of impact presses which achieve a very short cycle time that cannot be met with any other marking method.

One such customer in need of a marking solution was SPX Filtran. The part to be marked was dome shaped stamped metal. It was specified that marking should occur automatically as the part was inserted into a fixture, like a time card in a time slot. The cycle time had to be short, as the operators were processing a high volume of parts. The shape of the part presented two challenges. First, pressing the mark would deform the part without proper fixturing. Second, the shape of the part required the slot of the marking fixture to be large, so a pinch point hazard needed to be carefully prevented.

 

Engineering special nesting and fixturing for holding various sizes and shapes of parts is routine for Durable Mecco. To solve this application, Durable Mecco engineers worked with SPX Filtran to create a sliding nest fixture. The dome shaped part is loaded onto the nest, which includes a strategically placed anvil to back-up the part at the marking location. The operator advances the nest through a custom-shaped slot that conforms exactly to the shape of the part. Marking occurs when the nest strikes a proximity switch.

The SPX Filtran system also included a quick-change steel type holder, allowing SPX Filtran to achieve a very high level of productivity in marking their parts.

Impact Presses Are Versatile

In addition to marking, impact presses are also useful for assembly, stamping, forming, punching, and shearing applications. Ted Strother of King Electronics found that an impact is superior to gradual pressing in its application. "Durable Mecco was able to recommend an impact press in our assembly operation to insert one part into another without deforming the part. We used to perform this application by hand but the press provides a quick, easy, repeatable solution."

Other Industrial MarkingTechniques

Durable Mecco engineers recommend dot peen markers as an alternative marking technology when the marking application requires a high quality mark but with much variability of information being marked. With a variety of marking heads to choose from, the dot peen technology also allows for sufficient depth of mark to accommodate other processes such as painting and galvanizing.

Portability offers additional flexibility with dot peen marking. Fabricators often times are faced with small batch, unique marking requirements and find it beneficial to take the portable marking unit to the fabrication when the work piece is too large to fit into a bench system.

Don't Forget Plant Safety

Sometimes lost in the never-ending search for improved productivity is the need to maintain basic safety precautions in all plant operations. Durable Mecco has long been a leader in promoting its "Mecco Safety Tools" in its engineering of marking solutions.

One such recent request came from General Electric to improve the safety of its manual marking applications. In this case, General Electric hand stamp operators were marking large characters with hand stamps and sledge hammers. Per customer request, Durable Mecco designed its newest Safety First Grip for the stamp which provides improved protection to the operator's hand. The Safety First Grip was designed to be non-intrusive while providing the operator with a much more positive grip on the stamp while still achieving a clean, deep mark.

Another General Electric problem application called for three marks to be made on a steel bracket. The goal in this application was to find a cost effective solution to enhance the consistency and quality of the mark while also improving productivity. Durable Mecco engineered a cost-effective fixture to support the part resulting in improved alignment of mark while also speeding up the marking process. The added benefit of the fixture design was greatly improved operator safety.

Customer Driven One Stop Shop

As marking and identification application requirements have expanded, so to have Durable Mecco's capabilities and offerings. "A lot of customers use us as a one stop shop and come to us first for marking issues" says Clem Malinowski, General Manager. "More and more we act as marking consultants to help the customer to work through the application and then directing them to the best solution."

Durable Mecco's versatility has been showcased as new customer requests have led to an expanded product offering beyond just impact presses, steel stamps, type, roll dies, and dot peen markers. New products include ink jet systems, thermal printers, package date coding type and dies, part marking, tags, I.D. plates, facility signage, and stencils. Durable Mecco has become the "go to" source for many companies seeking marking and identification solutions.

Durable Mecco

Direct Part Marking Catches Terrorist

Seems that there is a new reason to adopt direct part marking - catching a terrorist.  According to New York police the VIN or Vehicle Identification Number directly marked on various parts of the Nissan Pathfinder used in the attempt to bomb Times Square last week played a key role in finding the suspect.  The VIN was used to track to vehicle through various owners and led to the parties in the anonymous Craigslist purchase of the vehicle shortly before the terrorist bombing attempt.

VIN's are marked on all vehicles manufactured and in various places.  They can be made by:

- laser marking

- dot peen marking

- stamping a tag

- nameplate

VIN numbers appear in a variety of places on every car including the dashboard, inner door, frame, and engine compartment.

 

Direct part marks have a variety of other uses including traceability, inventory control, warranty fulfillment, quality control management, process monitoring, branding (logo), serialization, and part identification.

Virtually any material can be direct part marked using one of the basic methods commercially available today.

 

Maybe you should consider the benefits of direct part marking - you never know how it could help your business or even catch a terrorist.  

Fiber Laser Engraving for Machined Parts

Yankee Hill Machine (YHM) located in Florence, MA is a leading supplier of machined components to the firearms and gun accessories industries. YHM prides itself on using state of the art technology in order to deliver the highest possible quality components to their customer base.

Part marking and identification is always an issue with machined metal parts and with more stringent ATF part traceability requirements YHM decided it was time to find an in house laser engraving solution to this problem so they called Durable Mecco.

Durable Mecco delivered a DuraLaseTM DLF-20 Elite fiber laser engraving and laser marking workstation to address the variety of issues faced by YHM. The largest issue the fiber laser marking equipment addresses is the new ATF requirement for ‘born on dating' for all critical gun components. Gun components are not allowed to leave the manufacturer without a serialized born on date to uniquely identify each one.

"The DuraLase DLF-20 was the allowed us to bring the marking back in house and eliminate the cost and added process time of out sourcing. It also allowed us to control the quality of the marking and to experiment with new ways of identifying our machined gun components." says Chris Graham, Production Manager at YHM.

"We are able take our machined parts and accomplish planar laser marking and laser rotary marking of aluminum, steel, and stainless steel to a depth of 0.001" for logos and 0.005" to 0.010" for serial numbers and bar codes."

"We are thrilled with the complete lack of down time with this laser marking and laser engraving system as well as the superior quality of the marking on our parts" states Chris Graham.

"We are now able to laser mark all of the parts we machine with part numbers, bar codes, and logos. The DuraLase fiber laser engraving system allows us to meet the ATF standard for traceability, track our parts internally, and deliver a great brand mark that really shows what YHM stands for - quality, engineering, and customer service" said Chris Graham.

The DuraLase DLF-20 fiber laser marking system is a fully enclosed Class I work station designed for harsh machining environments. VisiLaseTM software makes marking file changes easy and fast allowing the operators to focus on what really matters - machining great firearm components.

The DuraLase DLF-20 fiber laser marking system enclosure has a 19" x 23" work area and includes a programmable Z axis with almost 10 inches of travel allowing for the marking of all of the parts that Yankee Hill machines. The rotary axis option allows YHM to mark along and around the entire diameter of cylindrical parts. The ‘T' slot table is a flexible work surface that creates the mechanism for quick change fixtures as well as one off sample marking.

YHM is pleased with the choice of the DuraLase fiber laser marking system and the immediate and continuing return on their investment and expects to continue to find new parts to mark and new applications for the system.

Complete source for Industrial Marking Tools and Marking Equipment

Welcome to the Durable Mecco industrial marking solutions and marking equipment blog. The marking solutions experts here at Durable Mecco will be posting articles, videos, and specific customer industrial marking solutions. We will engage in conversations on the state of the art technology and techniques that allow industrial customers to permanently identify most materials.

We will talk about.....

- laser marking systems

- dot peen marking equipment

- pneumatic presses and impact presses and their many uses

- manual marking tools including steel stamps, steel type, roll dies, and hand stamps

- packaging date coding and type

- CNC markers

- Ink jet fluids

- Hot stamp foils and hot stamp printers

- Facility ID signs, ID tags, and stencils

And anything else required to answer the questions and comments our readers post.

We have many years of experience and have developed a unique broad based expertise that we wish to share through this forum.

Please post your questions and comments and our commitment to you is to find the best solutions to your problem and insure that your mark is the very best.

Welcome from the team here at Durable Mecco!