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Lottery ticket printer wins with new inkjet system!

Established in 1986, Lottographix, Inc. has been one of the major print vendors in the U.S. specializing in printing for the prime state lottery contractors. The Anser customer prints the ticket rolls and play-slips for state lotteries. Because each state lottery will run five or six different games at any one time, Lottographix had a lot of different packs to identify.

Lottographix shrink wraps the ticket rolls in packs of 500, and then packs ten of those in a carton. Since the products are typically the same size, Lottographix has been able to use a common size carton. But it is imperative that the cartons be correctly labeled and identified.

In the past, the company purchased preprinted cartons for packaging each game. This, however, created some inherent problems: The flat carton inventory took up too much valuable space; carton printing dies had to be designed and purchased for each lottery game, and costs were significantly higher for small quantity orders or for multiple plate changes. Games frequently change or are discontinued, which rendered preprinted carton inventory useless. Also, there was insufficient lead time on rush orders to print additional cartons. The company put up with these inefficiencies until a relationship with Van-Pak, a local industrial service/sales company, brought ideas that turned out to be stunning solutions for Lottographix's problems. The company first tried a standard high-performance printing system to print blank cartons in line after sealing.

The system was described as looking like an IV in a hospital — free-standing tripods on each side to print both sides of the cartons simultaneously, with a third unit for control in close proximity. With rubber hoses going every-which-way, the system was cumbersome, susceptible to being bumped, easy to trip over, easy to throw out of whack, and had to be recalibrated constantly.

Van-Pak's ingenuity prevailed, and together with Anser, they engineered a new solution. Now, on the line, the game packs are manually filled into the cartons, which are then hand-fed into a BestPack semi-automatic carton taper that offers a 37 cartons/minute capacity. To the taper are mounted two, individual high resolution, high performance Anser IJP-630 inkjet printer systems, to print both sides of the carton simultaneously. These Anser systems feature bar code, counter, date code, expiration code, and color ink options. They also store up to 200 messages and 50 logos and support a bulk-ink system; they can even hook up with its own keyboard to program each system. According to Steve Allen, GM at P/L, "Sweet, reliable and compact, our sealer-mounted Anser inkjet printers are perfect for our needs."

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