Meukow, the prestigious brand of Cognac, relies on TSC printers

It is near Cognac Region in France, within the Matha Distilleries, that the bottling takes place. Here the activities are in full swing with around 6,000 bottles produced per hour. The production site includes 6 bottling lines for a total capacity of 15 million bottles with around 18,000 hectoliters of Cognac, Brandy and other spirits. Meukow has a staff of 40 employees and realizes an annual turnover of 35 million euros.

Meukow placed its trust in TSC many years ago. The famous Cognac brand well appreciated the quality of the Taiwan manufacturer’s products: durability, ease of use and very little maintenance of the printers, some characteristics that perfectly fit the expectations of any producer! Already equipped with TSC desktop printers for its semi-automatic bottling lines, Meukow reviews its confidence in TSC for the equipment of new print & apply systems. The solution developed by LRI and implemented by ARCOCEAN, a partner of TSC and Meukow for more than 15 years, enables Meukow to fully automate the labelling process of its bottling lines.

The solution has been placed at the end of the bottling lines to label the boxes once the bottles packaged. The system includes the new TSC PEX-1000 printing mechanism. This powerful print engine delivers high print speeds up to 18 inches per second, the fastest in its class. The mechanism has been designed to integrate easily any print & apply system, thanks to its fully compatible structure and GPIO interface.

The complete PEX-1000 system integrates an intuitive 3.5-inch color display with a 6-button menu and a USB Host interface on the front panel for quick and easy updates. With a resolution from 203 dpi to 600 dpi, depending on the models, the PEX-1000 is able to satisfy any printing needs and label sizes, from smallest labels of 5 mm format to width up to 114 mm. It has been equipped with a large memory of 512 MB Flash and 512 MB SDRAM and multiple interfaces such as USB, parallel and serial interfaces, Ethernet, USB host and optional 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless and Bluetooth 4.0.

Once the labels printed by the TSC PEX-1000 print module, an articulated arm applies the labels on the boxes so the bottles can be dispatched to Meukow outlets in France and all around the world. Some improvements have been made on the system by ARCOCEAN such as an extension of the removal arm to be adjusted perfectly according to the size of the boxes and a buffer zone has been created to regulate the timing of the label output according to the velocity of the conveyor.

Thanks to the complete automation of its labeling process, Meukow significantly increased its productivity. For Xavier Meignan, Supply Chain Director of Meukow, the installation of the new print & apply system was a real success: “More than 2,000 boxes per hour are prepared and labelled on our new fully automated bottling lines, a big increase considering the previous figures that never exceed 150 boxes per hour on our semi-automatic lines.

ARCOCEAN also supplied the printing software ‘LRI-WebPrint’ developed in SaaS mode by LRI, a company specialized in software and printing systems development. This software allows Meukow to create its own labels and customize them quickly and easily (batch number, customer name …). For Xavier Meignan, it has significantly simplified their activities. “If previously we had to manage not less that 700 label masks, today thanks to LRI-WebPrint software, 10 masks are enough to satisfy all our customer requests. ”

“We have been working with ARCOCEAN for more than 15 years and we are totally confident in their printing and labelling equipments. Today again they fully met our expectations offering us a tailor-made solution that is truly adapted to our needs, a solution developed on the basis of a solid partnership with TSC.” concluded Xavier Meignan.

More than satisfied by ARCOCEAN services and TSC printer performances, Meukow plans to develop in the future its printing & labelling bottling station. The target will be to split the system by using two TSC PEX-1000 printers to be able to print labels in two colors. This would allow Meukow to create its own bottle labels, more than 3 million labels per year.