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Sessions of York has produced a tailor made labelling unit for Dorset-based original equipment manufacturer, Marlin Automated Manufacturing Systems. The Pick and Place machine will form part of a fully automatic labelling system and will be used by Marlin’s customer, Fusion Chesterfield, for water and gas pipe-fittings.

Marlin designs and manufactures purpose-built machinery for a raft of industries on a domestic and international scale. Sessions engineers have worked on-site at its plant to create a highly advanced unit that fulfils all Marlin’s criteria. The compact and highly accurate machine applies a bar code label onto 6 different sizes of plastic pipe fitting, between 20 and 32 mm in length. Having applied each pre-printed label, the machine reads it to ensure that it has been applied and printed properly.

The labeller was designed around Sessions’ pick and place concept – the only system able to work in accordance with the configuration of Marlin’s unit. Each label is placed onto an application pad before being applied to the component. With tolerances of plus or minus 0.25mm possible, this makes the labelling process more reliable and exact, particularly for small, difficult to handle components.

The machine will be used to label around four components a minute – the speed at which the components are produced by Fusion. However, with the capacity to operate more quickly, the machine offers the customer the flexibility to adapt in line with potential future output.

Commenting on the link up with Sessions, Marlin’s Technical Director, said, "Sessions of York’s service couldn’t be faulted – particularly that offered by its engineers on-site where it was needed most."

"Designing and producing machinery is itself a demanding business," he continued, "but tailoring a machine to work in tandem with that made by another company requires innovative technical skills, not to mention constant communication between everyone involved. Sessions helped the process to go as smoothly as possible, overcoming challenges to produce a machine that we, our customer and Sessions deserve to be proud of."

In addition to producing labelling equipment, Sessions of York designs and prints a wide variety of innovative label ranges encompassing multi-seal, tamper-evident, scented, scratch-off and tactile technologies to provide comprehensive benefits to companies in a range of industries, from pharmaceuticals to promotions, beauty to automotive parts.