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CASE STUDY: Code printers for CRVC champagnes

The Coopérative Régionale des Vins de Champagne (CRVC), which was founded in 1962 by a few winemakers who wanted to pool their production tools, has again entrusted Domino to supply its coding and marking requirements.

The cooperative boasts 900 hectares of vines and produces around 9 million bottles every year. In 2012, its members celebrated 50 years of working together and belonging to their cooperative. The CRVC enjoys an exceptional location covering 5 hectares right in the centre of Reims. Castelnau Champagne is the company’s main brand. It is exclusively distributed in hotels, cafés and restaurants as well as to private individuals.

CRVC is renowned for the quality of its champagne as well as for its environmental commitment. The cooperative cares for the environment by storing waste products such as inks and solvents in a dedicated area. These products are then removed by a specialist company. The cooperative also has a waste recycling plant for its waste products such as glass, paper, cardboard, plastics, metals, etc. Run-off water is even filtered on-site by Stoppol systems that separate water products using a decantation process. The site is already equipped with three systems.

The partnership between coding and marking equipment manufacturer Domino and the CRVC goes back a long way, as the co-operative has been using Domino laser equipment on its disgorging lines for almost 10 years.

In view of this long-term partnership, it was a natural choice for the company to call on Domino to assist with its programme for renewing the A100 ink jet printers on its branding lines, with 2 x C-Series large character printers already in use on the lines for marking bar codes onto packing boxes. With these two printers alone, the branding lines are able to produce 5,000 75cl bottles an hour, and 1,200 bottles an hour for other formats.

After detailed consultation, CRVC chose 2 x A320i touch screen ink jet printers from the A-Series i-Tech range for marking its glass bottle labels. Pascal Lebrun, the cooperative’s production manager says: “We chose Domino not only due to the reliability of its equipment, but also because it was able to offer a system that perfectly suited the needs of the operators who work on our branding lines every day. Our priority was to reduce errors by making it easier for operators to enter information. The Domino project team understood this and was able to fulfil our requirements by offering marking solutions with the A320i for printing alpha-numeric batch codes, as well as an Scrdom software application that now acts as an interface for operators to launch manufacturing orders on the production line.”

Using information provided by the Divalto client system, Scrdom enables the operator to initialise A-Series i-Tech printers for individual bottle marking and C-Series printers for marking cardboard crates in a simple and intuitive way.

After a few months using the A320i, Lebrun confirms: “Domino’s A100 printers had already proved themselves to be highly reliable. The new generation is even easier to use, as they do not require any maintenance. The operator interface has also been simplified, and this really makes a difference.”

An operator working on the main branding line adds: “Domino’s printers have given us much more freedom in using our production lines. Nonproduction periods can last several days on certain lines. These stoppages have no impact on the A320i ink jet printers.”

Lebrun concludes: “These new ink jet printers require very little maintenance, and they are reliable, which is absolutely essential for us.” He adds: “We were looking for a supplier capable of giving us a user-friendly solution, and Domino has already provided us with this level of support for many years.”

About Domino

Domino is the leading business within Domino Printing Sciences plc. Founded in 1978, the company has established a global reputation for the development and manufacture of coding, marking and printing tec

hnologies, as well as its worldwide aftermarket products and customer services. Today, Domino offers one of the most comprehensive portfolios of complete end to end coding solutions spanning primary, secondary and tertiary applications designed to satisfy the compliance and productivity requirements of manufacturers. These include innovative ink jet, laser, print & apply and thermal transfer overprinting technologies that are deployed for the application of variable and authentication data, bar codes and unique traceability codes onto product and packaging, across many industrial sectors, including food, beverage, pharmaceutical and industrial products.

Domino’s continued growth is underpinned by an unrivalled commitment to product development. In 2012, Domino was awarded the Queen’s Award for Continuous Achievement in International Trade.