Norwood / Allen Introduces New Bag Printing Systems for Medical Devices

January 30, 2008 – Norwood Marking Systems / Allen Coding Systems introduces its new family of integrated off-line bag printing systems for medical devices. Integrating Norwood / Allen’s NGT large format thermal transfer coders with bag feeding systems from Bomers Technology B.V., the new medical device bag printing systems reduce labor and material costs while producing exceptional print quality.

Designed for medical device manufacturers that are currently using pre-printed bags or affixing labels to bags, the new bag printing systems from Norwood / Allen offer an economical and efficient new alternative. Enabling medical device manufacturers to print directly on the package material on-demand, this new solution eliminates the need to purchase and inventory pre-printed bags and eliminates the high labor and material costs associated with affixing labels to packages.

Norwood / Allen’s family of integrated bag printing systems handles Tyvek, laminated foils and plastic bags – printing barcodes, logos, date/time and batch information directly onto the bags.

Producing the largest print area of any thermal transfer coding system in the world, the NGT achieves a print area of up to 8.4 x 19.68 inches (213 x 500 mm). The NGT coder can be integrated with either Bomers’ ZBM Compact bag feeding system to handle bags up to 13.5 x 15.5 inches (350 x 400 mm) in size or with Bomers’ BDM Series bag feeding system, which handles bags up to 39 x 39 inches (1000 x 1000 mm) in size.

Compared to bag printing or labeling operations that are semi-automatic and require a dedicated operator to manually load one bag at a time, the Norwood / Allen bag printing systems reduce labor and improve print registration. An operator simply loads up to 1500 bags at once and can then step away. With accurate, servo controlled positioning, the new bag printing system automatically feeds and prints up to 1250 bags per hour.

The NGT thermal transfer coders can print fixed and variable data, which improves product security and tracking with UPC, lot and production codes. With full clock and calendar functions as well as serialization, the NGT coders can print text and graphics, including a wide array of two-dimensional or RSS barcodes, with a resolution of 300 dpi (12 dots per mm) both horizontally and vertically. An unlimited choice of TrueType font styles and a wide range of sizes are available – six fonts come standard with space for 44 more.

To handle a wide variety of products while maximizing production throughput, the text and graphics can be changed over in seconds by simply recalling the product from memory. Additionally, the bag size can be changed over in five minutes or less, with no tools or change parts required.

The NGT Series Coders feature an integrated Ethernet card that allows access to a PC or network, which enables remote operation, monitoring and diagnostics of the print operation. The NGT Series Coders can also be equipped with an optional touch screen user interface on the control box, which enables operators to recall images from memory and handle simple editing functions at print time.

About Norwood Marking Systems / Allen Coding Systems / Kingsley Machine Company
Norwood Marking Systems, a division of Illinois Tool Works, has been at the forefront of innovation since developing the world’s first hot stamp imprinters for the food industry over 45 years ago. Kingsley Machine Company has also led the way, having patented its first hot stamp imprinter in 1932. Joining the ITW family in 2006, Allen Coding Systems is a leading U.K. manufacturer of overprinting equipment. Today, Norwood, Allen and Kingsley continue as market leaders, designing and manufacturing a range of innovative thermal transfer printers, hot stamp imprinters as well as ink and embossing printers that code and mark for a wide variety of industrial markets worldwide.