Effective packaging with effective production

Packaging and labelling your products with the most modern technology is a clear marketing imperative, yet these can often conflict with production requirements and objectives. National Adhesives has developed innovative adhesive solutions that fulfil both of these ambitions, allowing both the Marketing and Production Teams to achieve their objectives.

Brand Differentiation
In today’s competitive environment, Marketing Teams are working hard to increase the differentiation of their products, and at the same time Production Teams are trying to produce products at a low, cost effective unit cost. National understands this dilemma facing many companies and has devoted Research & Development resource to find a solution. The result of this focus is three unique adhesive solutions that satisfy the demands of both Marketing and Production teams.

CLEAR-LOK™ and CONTOUR™, National’s latest labelling adhesive innovations, allow companies to distinguish their brands through differentiating their bottles whilst ensuring this is achieved in a cost effective way. Savings are made through reduced running costs and reduced cost of label stock, and both CLEAR-LOK and CONTOUR require no capital investment in new labelling machinery.

The end-of-line packaging operation that packs the product into cases or trays for shipment is often overlooked and yet can be a real cause of production-line downtime. EASY-PAC™ is National’s complete package sealing solution that will maximise production uptime for packaging professionals who demand world-class efficiencies. EASY-PAC is a turnkey adhesive dispensing package that includes everything needed to revolutionise the way cases, cartons and trays are sealed, and also comes with a three-year guarantee for complete peace of mind.

Clear labelling with wet labelling machinery

CLEAR-LOK is a unique technology, allowing you to label glass bottles with clear plastic labels using existing wet labelling machinery. This allows a Marketing team to update the brand images of their products through the use of clear labels. And, this is all achieved with little or no disruption to the Production teams. Previously, investment would be required in Pressure Sensitive machinery to apply clear labels onto glass bottles.

CLEAR-LOK is based on unique waterborne adhesive technology and is used on machines with traditional cut & stack patch labels. CLEAR-LOK technology ensures that clear labels maintain their transparency on the bottles and the adhesive will not “whiten” if remoistened such as bottles placed in an ice bucket.

CLEAR-LOK also has excellent ‘on-machine’ performance, and with only minor machine modifications to the brushes and pallets, CLEAR-LOK will run at high production speeds of 40/50,000 bottles per hour. And the adhesive properties of CLEAR-LOK ensure the perfect hold of the label to bottle along the entire production line.

CLEAR-LOK is suitable for both one-way and returnable bottles and displays high ice water resistance. The low Capital Investment and lower total cost of labels have shown that CLEAR-LOK can be 50% more cost effective than Pressure Sensitive labelling.

Plastic sleeve labelling of contoured containers

The unique technology of CONTOUR now means that plastic sleeve labelling of contoured containers is possible using existing roll-fed labelling machine. So once again, the Marketing team can update the brand image of their products and Production can use the existing machinery that their Production personnel are experienced with.

How is this achieved? The roll-fed label is applied to the bottle using the unique CONTOUR hot melt and the label is immediately shrunk around the bottle using a heat tunnel. The unique CONTOUR technology ensures resistance to the heat in the shrink tunnel so the container-adhesive-label bond is not weakened. And, for maximum flexibility, CONTOUR technology can be used on contoured bottles made from glass, HDPE and PET. Depending on a number of parameters, CONTOUR will achieve up to 50% shrink.

CONTOUR only requires a low capital investment and ensures that your costs are controlled and can be up to 40% lower than the costs usually associated with sleeve labelling.

Improving production performance
Sealing cases, cartons and trays with hot melt adhesive allows a Production team to achieve the machine speeds and production efficiencies required for today’s demands. However, hot melt adhesives can also be a cause of production downtime and this is usually caused by char formation. Char is the substance produced by overheated hot melt or outside contaminants in the melt unit or hoses that can block filters, hoses and nozzles and bring the production line to a standstill. All these blocked nozzles and hoses need replacing, sometimes on a daily basis, which exposes the operators to hot machine parts increasing the risk of burn injuries. Blocked nozzles can also cause operators to increase jetting pressures, resulting in wider bead widths and wasted adhesive. Industry experience has shown that clean-running, properly adjusted hot melt application equipment uses 10% less adhesive than the norm.

To eliminate adhesive related downtime and the costs involved with it, National Adhesives developed EASY-PAC™, the first complete package sealing solution that maximises production uptime for packaging professionals demanding world-class efficiencies.

The EASY-PAC solution comprises a 90/100°C applied hot melt adhesive - the lowest in the industry, a new adhesive applicator complete with an integrated Autofill® vacuum feeder, and a brand new set of nozzles, modules, hoses and filters. EASY-PAC gives you access to the latest adhesive technology and brand new equipment, with no requirement for capital expenditure.

EASY-PAC eliminates char because the hot melt provides full case, carton and tray sealing functionality at the lowest application temperature on the market, only 90/100°C. At this low temperature char never has a chance to form. And with the integrated Autofill® vacuum feeder, you never have to open the hot melt tank, preventing the introduction of char-producing contaminants.

Industry experience and testing have also shown that, in case of accidents, burn severity is greatly reduced with low application temperature hot melts. And with the non-charring EASY-PAC system, employees have limited or no exposure to hot nozzles and guns during maintenance operations.

National is so confident that EASY-PAC eliminates char, that the application unit comes with a three year warranty, the longest in the industry. And, for complete peace of mind, our three year guarantee on replacement parts eliminates this cost from your business.