Toner cartridges

Traceability of the production process of toner cartridges

Initial Situation

A service provider is specializes in the refilling of toner cartridges. The delivered cartridges are being registered, controlled, sorted, fragmented, cleaned, if necessary equipped with spare parts, reassembled, filled, tested and boxed in a determinated procedure.

1. Conceptual Formulation

The identity of each cartridge as well as its current process step is to be checked at 3 stages – production, test room and packaging – due to reasons of quality control. Mix-ups and erroneous refills should thereby be precluded.

1. Solution proposed by alpharoll

The cartridges receive a label at each of those three production stages. The blank labels are furnished with a barcode containing the serial number by a thermal printer at the start. This serial number accords to a dataset in an Access®-database developed by alpharoll. The barcode is read in in the next department respectively by a fixed scanner. The cartridges are being held in front of it. The previous label will be pasted over after the completion of a step. A cartridge taken blindly out of the production can thus be easily identified and put back into the right stage of the process.

2. Conceptual Formulation

The cartridges are to be weighted in the test room in order to ensure the right filling.  

2. Solution proposed by alpharoll

The weight is determined by a scale and entered in the Access®-database. It will be compared to a set value and evaluated. The weight and the result of the weights test will be printed together with other data on a label which will be attached on the cartridge.