Tracking of Semi-Finished Products

Tracking of Semi-Finished Products

Today, semi-finished products are manufactured, dispatched and further processed along international supply chains. One of the greatest challenges is assigning the material to each and every step of the process chain. This becomes especially difficult when products such as coils, pipes, profiles, strips or hoses are modified in length or width during production. In conventional production processes, it is virtually impossible to accurately allocate the data for each part.

coilDNA GmbH, a 100 % subsidiary of AMAG Austria Metall AG, identified the market gap and developed a patented code consisting of 14 unique alphanumeric characters that are strung together in the code track – and never repeated. Each individual code element allows its exact position on the product to be determined. When data is assigned to these code elements, it can be retrieved in subsequent processing steps, regardless of how the semi-finished product was split. This enables seamless tracking of the material, its properties and the manufacturing conditions over several stages of the value chain – all the way to the end product.

A key requirement for the success of this type of coding is a high-performance CIJ printer system that can reliably apply the code, flexibly, without interrupting production and with reproducible results – even at very high speeds and under challenging industrial manufacturing conditions.

Collaboration with Leibinger

Leibinger developed its advanced interface software based on their messaging protocol. The Leibinger JET3up printer’s high data processing speed allows printing of the several 100 to 1000 metre-long rolled products up to an impressive 500 m/min. The flexible positioning and easy manipulation of the Leibinger print heads enable printing of the rolled strips in AMAG’s production at virtually any width position, even in several lanes if required. As a result, up to eight slit strips can be printed individually from above and below with different markings on the slitting lines. Even at this high speed range, excellent legibility of the dot-matrix font used is ensured.

From October 8 through 11, the system will be showcased at Booth 6E72, Hall 3, at the Aluminium trade fair in Düsseldorf, Germany.

(Source: Leibinger Press Release)