Gaining the British Retail Consortium (BRC) global certification for food safety and quality was a real turning point for Joseph Dobson & Sons Ltd, giving them the scope and credibility to expand the business. This has seen the company invest in new premises, new technologies and automated processes to sit successfully alongside some of its traditional sweet-making machines.
“The V-Series can easily cope with our high production speeds while producing extremely high quality, clearly defined print. In addition, the economy mode on the ribbon drive enables us to use every millimetre of film, eliminating wastage and significantly reducing our consumables’ costs...”Stephen Walshaw - Managing Director
For Joseph Dobson & Sons, coding has become a key part of their production process, which was originally being handled manually using another brand of ink jet printer. Confides Stephen, “Using the previous system was a very slow and messy process; if you didn’t get the tubes aligned on the old printer, you’d end up with ink spray everywhere. We needed technology that would fit into our new automated packing and bagging lines and most importantly, print clear sell by and batch codes without interfering with production output.”
The company turned to Domino, initially trialling its V120i Thermal Transfer Overprinting (TTO) printer, but soon decided to increase its investment to three additional V220i models. The V-Series TTO printers are installed on a series of high speed, multiform feeding and sealing lines which print sell by dates and batch codes on to the bagged sweets.
Domino’s V-Series i-Tech Ribbon Drive offers four ribbon save settings, including an ‘economy mode’ which facilitates a saving on ribbon usage of up to 60%. In addition, down time related to ribbon break is virtually eliminated thanks to its unique ‘dancing arms’ which constantly monitors ribbon tension.
“The V-Series printers are perfect. They can easily cope with our high production speeds while producing extremely high quality, clearly defined print.
In addition, the economy mode on the ribbon drive enables us to use every millimetre of film, eliminating wastage and significantly reducing our consumables’ costs,” explains Stephen.
Adding to its portfolio of Domino technology, Joseph Dobson & Sons also has two G-Series thermal ink jet printers integrated into its Rotech friction feeders for coding onto the primary carton packaging of its well known brand of throat lozenges.
“The G-Series is a fantastic piece of kit; it just keeps running and running,” enthuses Stephen.“We’ve had one of our G-Series in place for the past four years, operating 16 hours a day five days a week and to date, we have had zero maintenance issues. What’s more the quality and flexibility of the print and capability to add extra graphics and 2D bar and QR codes will enable us to adjust to any additional coding requirements should we need to in the future.”
The company has also replaced its old ink jet printer with Domino’s world leading A-Series inkjet solution to work with its hand packed sweets.“It’s a far cry from the unreliable, messy product it replaced and my staff love it. It’s easy to use, clean, efficient, and starts up every time.”
Says Stephen, “Maintaining and indeed successfully expanding a business that is nearly 200 years old isn’t always easy. But when you can work with a supplier like Domino that not only delivers in terms of the reliability and efficiency of its technology as well as the excellent on site support to over see and guide us through installation, it certainly helps.”
“The Domino technology has surpassed all our expectations and has without doubt helped us asa business to achieve our goals.”
