For today’s production and manufacturing lines, plastic bags are one of the most common surfaces that require date codes. This is because so many of the goods packaged in this way—whether they be coffee beans, candy, pet food, or even detergent pods—need to be marked with proper expiration dates to maintain industry standards and impart important information to consumers. As a result, manufacturers need to understand how to optimize their production lines to encode this important information without fail.
However, to determine what the best approach to this task will be, you first need to know what production specifics to consider. Let’s do a quick breakdown of important production line considerations when encoding expiration date stamps for plastic bags and evaluate what printers will best target these needs.
Important Considerations for Your Production Line
Is the Bag Filled?
In most circumstances, encoding is best performed on empty plastic bags. In these cases, the bags lie flat on the belt as they’re fed toward a stationary printer that prints the necessary codes. Depending on the specific line setup, these bags can either still be a part of the original roll or already divided.
For setups that require printing on filled bags, today’s technology can adapt. As an example, click on the screenshot below to see footage of a continuous inkjet (CIJ) printer encoding expiration date stamps on filled plastic bags.
