Europa Magnetics/CMC Turns to Imaje to Install 18 Inkjet Printers

With a production cycle of 1.8 seconds per CD-R, Europa
Magnetics Ltd. at Cramlington, Northumberland, UK is a disk manufacturer
with plants in Europe. To meet anti-counterfeiting requirements, they
have turned to Imaje
for high-speed, permanent and legible product coding solutions. These
are also essential for quality disks.

Europa Magnetics is part of the CMC Magnetics
Corporation, which has its headquarters in Taiwan. In addition to
their two plants in North East England, they have plants in Ireland,
USA, Mexico, China and Taiwan. These factories also make storage media including floppy disk, CD-Rs, CD-ROMS, and DVDs. Imaje
coding systems are used at all sites under a global supply and
support agreement with the makers of the CD-R production equipment.

Worldwide demand for CD-Rs and DVD-Rs is booming as
companies and individuals seek to store and access data, software and
music. Europa makes disks for media brands and high street retailers.
Each disk needs to carry information on where, when and how it was
produced, as well as a unique sequence number. This produces a string
of 23 characters that must be coded.

Speed, legibility, permanence and discretion are
essential coding and marking requirements. To achieve this, Europa
Magnetics has installed 18 Imaje S8 Master 1.1M ink jet printers.
These systems can code disks continuously at the rate of up to 40,000
disks per day. This has been achieved by integrating the print heads
with the CD-R production equipment, to ensure that coding is
completed as close to the manufacture as possible.

Reliability is essential in an intensive production
environment. The cleaning system in the S8 Master automatically
rinses the print head for trouble-free start-up. Thanks to a simple
plug-and-go fix, any printer can be moved from oneline to another to
suit production requirements.

Joe Crawford of Europa said: "Since
the introduction of the Imaje S8 printers, product loss is minimal.
The printers are simple to use, virtually maintenance free and our
operators are happy we have installed this trouble free coding
solution. The service we have received from Imaje over the last ten
years is also of a very high standard. We appreciate not having to
think about the coding element of the production process."

He added: "Europa
continues to innovate and offer added value for its clients. A
growing part of the Cramlington operation is a dedicated fulfillment
unit. This undertakes contract disk pressing for the software and
music industries and offers a complete package. This includes master
disk engineering, pressing, design and printing of disk and case
graphics and final packaging in jewel cases or cake boxes for bulk
disks."

Alex Pyott, plant manager for Europa said: "We
have a very fast four day turnaround for this fulfillment process. We
require reliable equipment to allow us to meet these strict deadlines
and Imaje has assisted us in achieving this."

"Europa
are very good customers of Imaje and we value the opportunity to work
with a company that has such a progressive and global outlook,"
concludes Alan Golshan, sales manager for
Imaje in North East England and Scotland.