Why Are Indonesian Food and Beverage Firms Adopting Coding and Marking Systems?

The International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (OICA) states that 139,886 commercial vehicles and 551,400 cars were manufactured in Indonesia in 2020. The automobile industry uses coding and marking systems for labeling metal, plastic, rubber, and other vehicle parts to provide quality assurance to customers. Additionally, effective labeling helps automakers track the components throughout the supply chain and keep a tab on counterfeiting. Thus, the surging automobile production, owing to the growing disposable income of people, will boost the adoption of such systems in the country.

Nowadays, laser coding and marking, continuous inkjet, drop-on-demand, thermal inkjet, thermal transfer overprinting, hot-melt inkjet, valve jet, and print and apply labeling are being used in several industries of Indonesia. In the recent past, continuous inkjets gained prominence over other systems due to their low operational cost. Whereas, in the coming years, the laser coding and marking technology will be adopted at the fastest pace due to the burgeoning demand for enhanced readability of the text and 2D codes on the product packaging.

In recent years, the food and beverage industry has emerged as the leading user of these systems in Indonesia due to the implementation of stringent government regulations on traceability and product safety. Such regulations mandate the proper labeling of ingredients, nutrition facts, manufacturing and expiry dates, and manufacturer's details on the packaging of food items and drinks. This sector uses coding and marking solutions for labeling salty snacks, baked goods and cereals, beverage cans and bottles, dairy products, meat and poultry, eggs, beverages, fruits and vegetables, and pet food and animal feed.

Apart from the food and beverage, tobacco, and automotive industries, the cosmetics, chemical, healthcare, electrical and electronics, personal and homecare, building and construction, and aerospace sectors require coding and marking systems. Companies operating in these industries procure these machines from Domino Printing Sciences plc, KGK Marking Technologies Group, Matthews International Corporation, Dover Corporation, ANSER Coding Inc., Hitachi Ltd., Danaher Corporation, Linx Printing Technologies, Koenig & Bauer Coding GmbH, and PT Samartha Solusi Indonesia.

There are a variety of industrial coding and marking systems. We have described here the types of printing technologies used for coding and marking in various sectors.

Drop-on-Demand Coding and Marking: The drop-on-demand printers only produce and eject droplets, when required.

Thermal Inkjet Printer (TIJ): These printers are reliable, breakdown-free, and require zero maintenance. In the pharmaceutical industry, a high-resolution printer is considered ideal.

Thermal Transfer Over Printer (TTO): The thermal transfer technology uses a thermal printhead, that consists of individual ceramic resistors. These are selectively heated for transferring the desired image onto the substrate directly from the coated ribbon.

Continuous Inkjet Coding and Marking Systems

The production facilities are tough places. To attain higher efficiency in these places, one needs to maximize the number of products to be processed, built, packaged, or assembled each hour. There is no room for error in such spaces.

It needs to ensure that everything runs smoothly, in order to keep the downtime minimum. The production environment is usually extreme for several reasons. In such places, thermal transfer can-not be utilized. Such places require only continuous inkjet for coding and marking.

The marking or coding of products in a warm environment may cause ink problems. The solvent-based ink is utilized to mark clearly onto non-porous surfaces for quick evaporation at low temperatures. It benefits in coding and marking, as the ink is required to dry quickly, but as the temperature rises, the solvent becomes uneconomical.

Laser Coding and Marking Systems

The laser systems are utilized for coding and marking products and materials. The laser systems offer numerous benefits.

Advanced laser systems are used for the permanent coding of all kinds of substrates. There is a specific type of laser for each surface, such as tin, cardboard, wood, plastic, and others. The laser systems make coding and marking of everything possible, including text, QR codes, logos, numbers, tht dates, or data matrix codes.

Laser systems enable permanent coding, without causing any risk of fading of text, barcodes, or other markings due to overexposure to the sun. They make coding possible at extremely high speed. It is often used for marking in the fast-moving consumer goods sector. These systems can function consistently with minimal maintenance, as there is no use of ink.

In addition, these systems are environmentally friendly, as they do not require any consumables, unlike inkjet and label applications.

Sales Drivers

The sales of Tobacco have significantly increased in Indonesia over the years. It increased focus on cleanliness for ensuring the end products' quality, thus contributing to rising demand for advanced coding solutions in the industry. Advanced coding technologies provide higher productivity, improved readability, and high-resolution printing for automatic and direct-to-the-box label applications. Such benefits lead to the growing demand for coding technologies in the tobacco industry.

The major players operating in the industry are Dover Corporation, Koenig & Bauer Coding GmbH, ANSER Coding Inc., Matthews International Corporation, Linx Printing Technologies, Matthews International Corporation, and PT Samartha Sousi Indonesia.

Therefore, the rising demand for advanced coding solutions in Indonesia is led by the expansion of the tobacco industry.

According to P&S Intelligence, Jakarta dominated the Indonesian coding and marking systems market in the preceding years. This can be ascribed to the extensive demand for packaged food and beverages, construction items, and metal products owing to the vast population of the city. Coding and marking on these goods give quality assurance to the end users. Owing to these reasons, the city will also adopt this equipment at the highest rate in the upcoming years.

Thus, the flourishing automotive industry and burgeoning tobacco demand will augment the deployment of coding and marking systems in Indonesia.