Groz-Beckert makes personalised customer label for needles

13 Dec '18

3 min read

Courtesy: Groz Beckert

Groz-Beckert, Germany’s leading textile machinery company, has launched personalised customer labels for improved know-how protection and protection against mixing up needle types. The Groz-Beckert customer product offers the opportunity to customise the designation of the felting and structuring needles in the production according to our requirements.

The goal of the customer product activity is to always be able to provide customers and partners with optimal value. Since the company is aware of the sensitivity of its own know-how, it fully understands that the know-how of the customers and partners is equally protected, Groz-Beckert said.

Clearly-identifiable names of the products, for example, ‘15x18x40x3 R222 G…’ – make it relatively easy to draw conclusions regarding the product-needle combination. So, if the needle packaging is open in production, anyone – including visitors to production – can see which needle is used to make the current product. Long developed process and product knowledge can thus be lost, along with the competitive edge over market competitors. The risk that the nonwoven product can be copied increases significantly.

To ensure that this does not happen, Groz-Beckert has developed a solution in line with the major trend towards ‘individualisation’, which also offers optimal know-how protection. With the customer product, Groz-Beckert is offering the option of replacing the previous clearly-identifiable nomenclature that describes the needle, with a unique individual designation. This could be the company name, internal number, a machine designation, or information about the needle board layout. We print our chosen designation directly on the label of the needle packaging – unique and secure. The packaging text is only limited by the label size to 22 characters. The only other thing visible on the individualised label is the packaging unit (for example, 500 needles per box). The DataMatrix code merely references the Groz-Beckert homepage. A second label on the other end of the needle packaging also shows the packaging unit and the batch number as an alphanumerical code to ensure that the needle box is assigned correctly in logistics. The corresponding DataMatrix code includes the batch number and the packaging unit. If we want to periodically change our designation, this is also possible.

Using customer product, the customised designation can be optimally adapted to our existing warehousing or needle board system or the production line the needle is used in. This also makes allocation easier.

The customer product not only offers a significant improvement in know-how protection, but also practically eliminates the risk of needles being mixed during installation. The designation can be selected so that a clear differentiation is apparent. This was not always the case in the past due to the complexity of the clearly-identifiable nomenclature.

If needle types are mixed up and placed in a needle board, this can have a major impact on the end product. In a worst-case scenario, this can lead to instant needle breakage due to the needles being overloaded. The result is machine downtime, additional set-up time for equipping the needle boards, and scrap material, leading to increased costs. The increasingly stringent quality assurance requirements, especially in the automotive industry, are also taken into account. Consequently, the customer product also offers significant added value with regard to error prevention and product liability. (GK)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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