Samsonite Europe: „Legi Air labelling system is sending luggage on a trip"

“It rests during the day …” says Germain Ghys, Technical Service Manager in the European headquarters of the world-renowned manufacturer of distinguished suitcases and bags in Oudenaarde, Belgium. “Its special moment will arrive late at night, when the pallets are readied for European customers.” He is referring to the label printing dispenser Legi Air, a product of Weber Marking Systems, which plays an important role in the logistics process of the world’s largest luggage manufacturer.

The Samsonite brand was originally founded by Jesse Shwayder in 1910, when he started producing very sturdy and robust, yet very attractive suitcases for travellers of the new century. Over the decades, a few individual travellers turned into a travel movement, which subsequently spawned an entire industry. Samsonite always kept its ear to the ground, sensitive to the needs of travellers in particular. This ensured Samsonite its innovative edge.

Samsonite was the first manufacturer of complete travelling sets, ideal not only in terms of matching design, but also for compact, nested storage when not in use. They were the first to introduce extremely light-weight luggage onto the market and the first to fit suitcases with castors. Hard to believe that suitcases and bags had to be lugged with such effort in the past. Work on new products and ongoing developments continues full throttle to this day. Here in Oudenaarde in Belgium, the corporation is at the cutting edge of developments in the industry. This is where all the designs and creations from London headquarters are produced as prototypes.

In addition to a section manufacturing softbags, the entire European logistics section is also located in Oudenaarde. 20 and more containers with finished products arrive here daily from all the manufacturing countries. These goods will first go into intermediate storage at the Logistics centre, where they are also packaged to suit customer orders. Large suitcases arrive in their own boxes already. Smaller suitcases and softbags are packaged into boxes and identified with picking labels. Boxes are available for packaging in three heights and two widths.

Box labelling with automatic height detection

Once the individual boxes have been packed and have their picking label, a conveyor belt will transport them on to the palletising station. The barcode label with the picking number may be applied to an arbitrary side of the boxes. Bar code scanners are positioned at various points along the conveyor to ensure that the barcode will be clearly legible. Once the scanners recognise the barcode, the system PLC will compare the picking number to customer orders and allocate a pallet.

This information is forwarded to the Legi-Air label printing dispenser to copy the picking number to the printed label and simultaneously add a clearly legible pallet character. It has somewhat over a second only to print and apply the label contactless, because this is how long the box will wait under the applicator. The station where the box will be firmly sealed with a plastic tape is located directly downstream of the labelling system. To ensure that boxes of varying heights will all be accurately labelled, Weber Marking System's engineers fitted the labelling system with a variable stroke sensor.

The dispensing head can pneumatically extend up to 380 mm. A small optical sensor, mounted directly on the tamp pad, will measure the distance to travel. As the downward rushing dispensing arm approaches to within 10 mm of the surface of the box, the sensor will detect the surface and transmit a signal back to the Legi-Air's controller. The label will be blown towards the box immediately and the dispensing arm retracts again to wait at the printing module dispensing edge for the next label. More than 3,000 boxes will be labelled in this way at Samsonite, night after night.

After the boxes are all labelled and sealed, they are transported to an exit conveyor belt to be stacked on pallets. The pallets are clearly marked with a character. The staff will then push all the boxes marked with the same character onto their corresponding pallet. This is how all the pallets are prepared for their journey overnight. When the gates of the halls are thrown open at dawn, numerous trucks will be waiting there for more than 2,200 m³ of boxes, ready to embark on journeys to shops in all of Europe.