Reliability Clinches Sales
A meat processor picks marking/coding stamp printer for its plant because of dependability
One good reason for a meat processor to select a company to provide machinery is location. If something goes wrong, a processor wants immediate action. The closer, the better.
Pine Brook, N.J., the home of Bell-Mark Corp., is just a short drive away from Verona, N.J., the home of Cameco Inc. It would probably be a good bet that when Jerry Bennett, Cameco's vice president of operations, wanted to install a new label printer in the company's plant, he selected Bell-Mark because of the short distance.
Think again.
The reason Bennett selected Bell-Mark is because experience told him he will probably never see a Bell-Mark service employee.
Cameco Inc., a processor of sliced ham and turkey products for foodservice and retail outlets, installed a Bell-Mark marking/coding stamp printer on its Multivac packaging machines for its operation in April.
The company has one other Bell-Mark machine, and Bennett notes that the total amount of downtime on that machine was zero. Cameco was looking to change from a hot stamp printer because of the downtime needed for changeover.
Avoiding downtime
Downtime, or lack thereof, is extremely important to Cameco Inc., as it is to every meat processor. Cameco produces 45,000 to 50,000 pounds of product each day, and any substantial downtime could put a crimp into that schedule.
"We looked at many companies," Bennett points out. "One of the things I had to judge the competition against was the fact that Bell-Mark was already here, and we never had any downtime.
"Some of the companies are very close to our plant-including Bell-Mark," he adds. "But I don't care if the company is standing in my plant, a piece of equipment isn't doing me any good if we have a continual problem with it."
The Bell-Mark marking/coding stamp printer is simple to operate. The machine codes, prints and labels on all flexible packaging films, labels and cartons. It installs on horizontal, vertical form, fill and seal, cartoners, labelers, and all intermittent motion machines.
The 2-pound, one-piece cast coding system, marketed by both Multivac and Bell-Mark, features:
-- An operating speed of 125 prints a minute.
-- New and improved ink cartridges.
-- Fast dry formulations that provide adhesion on poly, metalized foil and all substrates.
-- Patented foam/membrane composition that insures metered ink distribution for high quality impressions at low operating costs.
-- Violet, blue, red, green, black, white and yellow colors.
-- Specialty formulations including FDA-approved inks for direct food contact.
Cameco tends to run "a lot of small orders for a lot of different customers," according to Bennett. This leads to different code dates and other printed information.
"We have to be able to change very quickly or accumulate a great deal of unnecessary volume loss," he says. "With Bell-Mark, I have a lot of versatility. I can print my dates horizontally or vertically, I can move location of the print, and I can easily change dates."
But Bennett continually returned to the theme of "downtime" when talking about what swayed his opinion during the decision-making process.
"Bell-Mark has proven itself," he insists. "It was up to the other companies to come in and prove they could be better. It is pretty darn hard to do better than no downtime.
"Bell-Mark continually tries to make [the printer] suit our needs," Bennett notes. "When I had a question about ink, [Bell-Mark representatives] would send me samples of different inks. I've asked for unusual colors at times and they helped me out. Anything to make our jobs easier."
And when it came to installing the machine, Bell-Mark employees came in on a Saturday so there would be no downtime.
"They worked around my schedule," Bennett points out. "After installation, there were no problems. With many pieces of equipment, you usually have a start-up problem. With this machine, we did not incur one."
Eight months after installation, Bennett could not be happier.
"It has been a good-running unit; we haven't had one complaint from our employees," he stresses. "I appreciate the way Bell-Mark remains concerned after the sale. They give the impression they want their customers to be completely satisfied."
And equally as important, Bell-Mark employees probably won't have to make the short drive to Verona to fix the printer.