Roofing tiles coded reliably despite conditions

Edited by the Manufacturingtalk editorial team Jul 9, 2001

At Redland Roofing Systems' Lutterworth plant, Imaje ink jet printers are used to code every fourth tile on one edge with time, Julian date and plant identification.

Manufacturing concrete roofing tiles is a noisy, dirty and continuous operation which, at first sight, might not look very sophisticated.

Closer examination shows that producing the millions of roof tiles used by the building industry demands automatic machinery which will continue to work reliably and accurately under very difficult conditions.

Redland Roofing Systems' Lutterworth plant, one of eleven in the UK, operates 20 hours a day, five days a week producing 16 million tiles a year in a wide range of styles and colours.

In what must be the most testing coding operations in any industry, Imaje ink jet printers are used to code every fourth tile on one edge with time, Julian date and plant identification.

Despite the far from ideal working conditions, the Imaje printers have proved very reliable and are now also being used to identify certain tiles designed for specific roof positions.

Ink jet printers are often considered as only suitable for relatively clean production areas but, as Redland have found, with careful maintenance, Imaje printers are just as reliable in the harshest environments.