GB2449621A

GB2449621A - Labelling plant

Info

Publication number: GB2449621A
Application number: GB0710075A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Peter Woolls
Original assignee: SOVEREIGN LABELLING SYS Ltd
Current assignee: SOVEREIGN LABELLING SYS Ltd
Priority date: 2007-05-29
Filing date: 2007-05-29
Publication date: 2008-12-03
Anticipated expiration: 2027-05-29
Also published as: GB2449621B; GB0710075D0

Abstract

Labelling plant features labels or booklets 16 transported from a stack 22, past a glue application station 30 at which point an adhesive patch is applied to each booklet 16 from a supply tape 32 reel 34 with a release layer. The booklets 16 are then applied to containers 52 at a transfer station 50. The transport means may be a rotary conveyor 12. The glue station 30 may feature resilient fingers (35,36, fig.2) allowing contact between the tape 32 and booklets 16, so as to deposit the glue patches on the booklets 16, from the tape 32, as aided by the tape release layer.

Description

APPARATUS FOR ADHERING DOCUMENTS TO CONTAINERS

Field of the invention

The present invention relates to an apparatus for adhering documents to containers.

Background of the invention

In the field of pharmaceuticals, it is often desirable to provide large medication usage instruction leaflets.

Because of the amount of information that needs to be given to the patient and/or the pharmacist, these single sheets may be nearly as large as an A2 sheet and they are folded many times, concertina fashion, to make it possible for them to packaged with the medications. Where a drug is bottled, the folded instruction sheet, which is termed an outsert, is adhered to the outside of each bottle in a similar way to a label. A releasable adhesive is used so that the outsert can be peeled away from the bottle without it being damaged.

Various systems have been proposed in the prior art for adhering such outserts to containers. In some systems, hot glue is sprayed onto the container or onto the outsert before the outsert is pressed against the container.

However, spraying of hot glue is a messy process that has inherent disadvantages, which the present invention seeks to avoid.

A better solution taught in the prior art relies on a product referred to herein as strip-stik tape. This is a tape that comprises a support web having different silicone release coatings on its opposite sides. A first side of the web carries a layer of pressure sensitive adhesive and the properties of the two release coatings are such that when the tape is unwound from a roll, the adhesive layer always remains on the first side and comes away from the second.

In labelling machines that use strip-stik tape, after a run of strip-stik tape has been unwound from a supply roll, outserts drawn from a supply stack at a loading station are pressed at intervals onto the adhesive side of the tape and remain temporarily attached to the support web of the tape.

The support web of the tape is then used to transport the outserts to a transfer station at which the support web is folded over a blade to separate it from the adhesive, which remains stuck to the document. As the support web is peeled away from the adhesive, the document with an applied patch of adhesive is pressed onto and adheres to the bottle or other container to be labelled.

It will be appreciated that the transfer station operates in the same manner as a convention labelling station which transfers self-adhesive labels from a silicone coated carrier web onto bottles or containers to be labelled.

An important drawback, however, of using a strip-stik tape in this manner results from the outserts being heavy and larger than the width of the strip-stik tape. When several such outserts are being transported by the length of tape stretching from the outserts loading station to the transfer station, the weight of the outserts can result in snapping of the support web of the tape or in individual falling off because of their adhesive from the web. It should also be mentioned that initial threading of labelling machines that operate in this way can be rather messy as the adhesive of the strip-stik tape is exposed.

Summary of the invention

With a view to mitigating the foregoing disadvantages of the prior art, the present invention provides an apparatus for adhering outserts to containers, comprising a conveyor for serially transporting outserts drawn individually at a loading station from a supply stack first to a gluing station at which a pressure sensitive adhesive is applied to each outsert then to a transfer station at which each outsert is adhered to a respective container, characterised in that the gluing station comprises means for pressing onto the outserts transported by the conveyor a tape formed of a support web having a release coating overlaid with a pressure sensitive adhesive and means for separating the support web from the outserts while the latter remain on the conveyor, whereby an adhesive patch is applied to each outsert as it continues to be transported by the conveyor to the transfer station.

In the present invention, the outserts are transported to the transfer station by the conveyor, not by the support web of the strip- stik tape. Consequently the problem of overloading the support web does not arise as the adhesive coated outserts are separated from it while they are still supported by the conveyor and before they reach the transfer station.

Threading of the apparatus is simplified because the only run of strip-stik tape on which the adhesive layer is exposed is that extending from the supply roll to the gluing station. By the time it leaves the gluing station, the support web will have had all or substantially all of its adhesive layer transferred to outserts making it easier and cleaner to handle.

Threading is simplified further in a preferred embodiment of the invention by including in the means for pressing the tape onto the outserts transported by the conveyor a sub-assembly that is pivotable away from the conveyor.

It is preferred that the documents should be transported in the conveyor with a vertical orientation so that they may be directly applied to the sides of containers being moved along a horizontal platform.

Conveniently, the conveyor is formed as a drum rotatable about a vertical axis and having axially extending pockets on its cylindrical outer surface each dimensioned to receive one outsert. The axial length of the pockets is advantageously greater than the width of the support web of the tape to allow the outserts to be retained in the pockets by means of guides engaging upper and lower regions of the outserts that do not come into contact with the tape and do not acquire an adhesive coating.

Brief description of the drawings

The invention will now be described further, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a perspective view of an apparatus of the invention, Figure 2 is a horizontal section through a detail of the apparatus shown in Figure 1, drawn in perspective and to an enlarged scale, and Figure 3 shown a partial perspective view of the apparatus from above with part of the gluing station pivoted away from the conveyor to assist in threading of the strip-stik tape.

Detailed description of the preferred embodiment(s) The apparatus shown in the drawings comprises a conveyor 10 in the form a drum or cylinder 12 rotatable about a vertical axis. The outer surface of the cylinder 12 is toothed or castellated to define a plurality of pockets 14, each dimensioned to receive an outsert 16.

The conveyor 10 passes first through a loading station at which outserts 16 drawn from a supply stack or magazine 22 are loaded into the pockets 14. The outserts 16, which have previously been folded are each of a thickness corresponding to the depth of one of the pockets 14 so that as a pocket 14 is aligned with the supply stack 22, an outsert 16 is pressed into it. As the cylinder 12 rotates, it will then advance the outserts 16 one at time to the gluing station 30.

In the gluing station 30, the outserts 16 have an adhesive patch transferred to them from a strip-stik tape 32, which as earlier described, has a release coating on both sides and an adhesive layer overlying the release coating on one side. The tape 32 is wound on a supply roll 34 with its adhesive coated side facing away from the centre of the supply roll and as the tape is unwound the adhesive layer separates easily from the radially inward facing side of the tape 32.

As shown in Figure 2, within the gluing station 30, the side of the tape 32 carrying the adhesive layer is pressed by resilient fingers 35 and 36, in the form of steel springs, onto the outer side of the outserts 16 transported in the pockets 14 of the conveyor cylinder 12. In this way, the adhesive carried by the tape 32 is made to bond to the outserts 16 more strongly than it is bonded to the support web of the tape, the latter bond being weak on account of the silicone release coating on the web.

Because the tape 32 adheres to outserts 16 while these are being transported by the conveyor 10, the tape 32 is pulled from its Supply roll 34 automatically, avoiding any requirement for a mechanism to advance the tape 32 in synchronism with the outserts conveyor 10 nor in synchronism the conveyor used to transport the containers to be labelled.

At the end of the gluing station, the support web of tape 32 is folded over the sharp edge of a stripper blade 38. This blade 38 serves to pull the support web of the tape 32 away from the outserts 16 while leaving a patch of adhesive 40 on each outsert 16. The web of the tape 32, from which at least the bulk of the adhesive layer has been removed, is wound onto a take-up roll 33. The latter may conveniently be driven by way of a suitable slipping clutch to take up slack without severely tensioning the support web of the strip-stik tape.

The containers 52 to which the outserts 16 are to be adhered are transported by a second conveyor (not shown in the drawings) to a transfer station 50. There, the side of an outsert 16 carrying an adhesive patch 40, is pressed onto one of the containers 52 so that the outsert is adhered to the container 52 thereby emptying the pocket 14. The pocket 14 is now ready to pick up another outsert on its next passage through the loading station 10 for the cycle to be repeated.

As seen in Figures 1 and 3, the gluing station 30 has a cover plate 31 which is not shown in the section of Figure 2. The outserts 16, which are wider than the tape 32, project vertically further than the cover plate 31. As a result, the edge of the cover plate 31 acts as a guide surface holding the outserts in the pockets 14 of the conveyor as the support web of the tape 32 is peeled away from them by the stripper blade 38. The surface of the outserts 16 contacted by the cover plate 31 does not have any adhesive applied to it by the strip-stik tape 32.

It will be noted from Figure 2 that the outserts 16 are never transported by the support web of the strip-stik tape 32 and are only advanced between stations by the action of the conveyor 10. Furthermore, the outserts 16 are separated from the web of the tape 32 before they reach the transfer station. As a result, there is no weight carried by the support web of the tape 32 capable of causing it to rupture.

The possibility of an outsert dropping off the strip-stik tape under its own weight before it reaches the transfer station is also avoided.

Threading of the strip-stik tape through the gluing station is simplified by forming the resilient fingers 35 and 36 and the stripper blade 38 as part of a sub-assembly 37 that can be pivoted away from the conveyor 12 and from under the cover plate 31 in the manner shown in Figure 3.

In this position of the sub-assembly 37, the strip-stik tape has only to be fed around a single guide post or roller 39 on its path from the supply roll 34 to the take-up roll 33.

As the sub-assembly 37 is pivoted back to, and locked in, the operating position shown in Figure 2, it automatically tensions the tape 32 and adheres it to the outserts being transported by the conveyor 12.

Claims

1. An apparatus for adhering outserts to containers, comprising a conveyor for serially transporting outserts drawn individually at a loading station from a supply stack first to a gluing station at which a pressure sensitive adhesive is applied to each outsert then to a transfer station at which each outsert is adhered to a respective container, characterised in that the gluing station comprises means for pressing onto the outserts transported by the conveyor a tape formed of a support web having a release coating overlaid with a pressure sensitive adhesive and means for separating the support web from the outserts while the latter remain on the conveyor, whereby an adhesive patch is applied to each outsert as it continues to be transported by the conveyor to the transfer station.

2. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the outserts are transported in the conveyor with a vertical orientation.

3. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the conveyor is formed as a drum rotatable about a vertical axis and having axially extending pockets on its cylindrical outer surface each dimensioned to receive one outsert.

4. An apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein the axial length of the pockets is greater than the width of the support web of the tape.

5. An apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the tape is drawn from a supply roll by the action of the conveyor on outserts being transported by the conveyor while still adhered to the tape.

6. An apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the means for pressing the tape onto the outserts transported by the conveyor include a sub-assembly that is pivotable away from the conveyor to assist in threading of the tape through the gluing station.

7. An apparatus for adhering documents to containers substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.