Joint engineering and commercial initiatives in the coding and vision system sectors from Cognex and Markem-Imaje have been designed to develop an advanced and integrated solution for manufacturers to ensure the accuracy of coding on their packages.

Products with incorrect, unreadable or missing codes can cause significant problems for manufacturers. Not only is traceability made difficult, if not impossible, during recall situations but also retailers may fine manufacturers or reject products. Since 2015, Mark & Read, an automated Cognex camera and Markem-Imaje printer verification solution, has helped companies confirm the right code is correctly printed every time, reducing unnecessary waste and helping ensure non-coding related recalls run more smoothly.

Markem-Imaje and Cognex are deepening their existing partnership to develop the next generation of Mark & Read applications for global fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies. Both companies’ research and development and commercial teams will be working more closely together to integrate their printing and reading solutions, collaborating at regional and global levels on opportunities and projects in the packaging market.

By working together earlier in the engineering design process, they will ensure their products work even more seamlessly together to provide even quicker and more accurate code verification. Manufacturers will also benefit from a more intuitive user experience – from setup through to full-production.

“We are excited to combine our Mark & Read solution and proven Cognex’s vision solution,” says Vincent Vanderpoel, CEO of Markem-Imaje. This combination will allow us to capitalize on our major customer references, helping them minimize rework due to missing or unreadable text and bar codes, reducing waste from using incorrect data in printed messages, and avoiding scrapped product due to incorrect packaging materials being used on the production line.”

“Together with Markem-Imaje, we are building new capabilities to improve new global standards for printing product quality, eliminating production errors, lowering manufacturing costs, and exceeding consumer expectations for high-quality products,” says Robert Willett, CEO of Cognex Corporation.

Manufacturers can expect to see the first of a new generation of Mark & Read solutions by the end of 2018, with a range of additional improvements available in 2019.