Overview of Operations
The following information gives an overview of the operations carried out in the Manufacturing, Warehousing and Administration areas of Newell Rubbermaid, Berol Brand.
Fibre Tip Pens & Markers
Injection Moulded Components
When making a pen you firstly injection mould the components which form the body of the product. Usually these consist of a cap, barrel, nib adaptor and end plug. When injection moulding you take thermosoftening plastics e.g. Polythene, polypropylene, A.B.S., Acetal and heat the material to approximately 280o Centigrade, mix it with pigment to give the required colour and then force it into the Moulding Tool where it cools and takes on the shape you require.
Moulding Tools are manufactured by specialist Toolmaking companies. In order to produce sufficient quantities on very expensive equipment you have multi-cavity moulds, the largest making 64 components each time the machine goes through a moulding cycle, typically every 18-25 seconds.
Ink
We manufacture on-site the majority of the inks which we use in our products. The inks can broadly be divided into two groups:-
Water Based ink which is made from water, glycol, dyestuffs to give the shade we require, wetting agents to assist the ink flow and preservatives to prevent any mould growth.
Spirit Based ink which is made from organic solvents similar to White Spirit, resins to give the ink film forming properties and dyestuffs to give the shade specified. The water based inks are used in the general writing and colouring pens, the spirit based inks are used in products for marking on surfaces such as steel and glass and also where the ink must be waterproof.
After mixing to the formulation produced from the Computer database, the inks are filtered and tested for colour, specific gravity, surface tension and when approved are stored in drums ready for use in the Pen Assembly department.
Pen Printing
The first operation in the assembly of a pen or marker is to print the graphics on to the barrel and sometimes the top of the cap. Generally these graphics are decided by the Marketing Department although in the case of Special Imprint orders the customer specifies the artwork. Preferably the artwork is supplied in a camera ready form, but on many occasions it requires modification such as reduction and addition so as to be suitable for printing. This is carried out via an Artwork Generation program running on a powerful Personal Computer and then turned into a photographic positive on a Repromaster camera.
The positive produced is held against a Silk Screen which is purchased coated with photographic emulsion, the Ultra Violet light to which the screen is exposed causes the emulsion to become insoluble in water, whereas the areas protected from the UV light remain soluble in water.
Subsequent washing with water leaves the mesh open corresponding to the areas we wish to print.
The screen is mounted in the printer and the appropriate colour of ink is flooded onto the screen, a squeegee forces the ink through as the pen body rotates underneath. The printed barrel then passes through a drying tunnel which flashes off the solvent and commences the curing process. The inks we use are Epoxy based (like Araldite) and full adhesion takes 24 hours to achieve.
We use polypropylene as the material from which barrels are made, as this has a low vapour transmission figure, which means in practical terms it has an almost zero weight loss due to the ink evaporating through the walls of the product. However the choice of polypropylene also means that the barrels tend to reject the printing ink unless they receive pre-treatment. In order to make the ink bond we rotate the barrels in front of a natural gas / air burner to prime the surface. If we used polystyrene as the barrel material then we could print straight onto it without pre-treatment, and the injection moulding of the items would be much easier. However the products would have lost as much as one third of their ink in the first 6 months by migration through the wall of the pen.
We have experienced an increasing demand for pens with multi-colour prints, some for Berol products but mostly for promotional items. We carry this out in two different ways.
In the event that we need a multi-colour pen assembled from scratch then we can print up to 3 colours of ink on a pen barrel using our Moss printing machine. This is really 3 single colour Cremonisi units wound into a circle. The machine prints one colour and dries it, it then prints a 2nd colour and dries it, followed by a 3rd colour and curing of the print. Keeping each colour in the correct position to the other colours is critical, this is called registration. We carry this out by keeping the barrels fixed on a metal mandril while the 3 colours are printed.
Should we have to print assembled pens then we use a Pad / Tampon printing process. Here the graphics we wish to print are etched into the surface of a metal or nylon plate. The plate is flooded with ink and then the excess is scraped off just leaving the ink in the recessed area. A silicone pad is pressed onto the plate and lifts the ink from the recesses, the pad is then pressed down onto the pen, wrapping itself around the curved surface and the ink then adheres to the pen rather than the silicone pad surface.
The process was invented in Switzerland and used for printing the figures onto watch dials.
Pen Assembly
Before putting the pens and Markers together we have to purchase in all of our products, with the exception of the Valve marker, the ink is absorbed on a reservoir inside the barrel. The reservoir is in fact a cousin of the cigarette filter.
We also have to buy in the Tips that we use in our products. A few are still made of wool but mostly they are made from man-made fibres such as nylon, dacron, and extruded acetal. The tip is like an iceberg with most of it hidden inside the pen or marker. It is the most expensive single component. We obtain the tips we use from all over thw world.
The pens are assembled in much the same way as you would do if you were carrying out the task by hand, only rather faster at speeds of 100 pens per minute. The ink is injected by long hypodermic needles and pumps.
During assembly the machines check after each operation that it has been successfully carried out. For example if the machine has tried to insert a tip, the next station on the machine will check that a tip is present. If it should not be in place then the product will be ejected to be rectified by hand. This checking includes the presence of ink which is determined by weighing each product or by means of capacitance detectors.
The machine operators are termed Operator/Inspectors and check products they produce, there are also patrol Inspectors checking first off production and final batch inspection.
Fountain Pen Assembly
This is basically a hand assembly operation where the components of the pens are put together. The caps are produced by adding a clip to the plastic cap moulding, securing it with a disc or button. Hot foil decoration of the cap or button is also carried out. Pens have the capability to use ink cartridges or bottled ink so an ink converter has to be assembled for inclusion in each set.
The fountain pen nibs, see below, and assembled into a nib unit and screwed into the nose of the pen.
Fountain Pen Nib Production
The fabrication of Fountain Pen nibs commences by blanking out the nib silhouette and polishing same to remove burrs. The nib blanks are then cropped to cut the end of the nib to the required length, pierced to put the hole(s) in the nib which will be the end of the slit, shear or saw slit to give the channel which carries the ink to the writing point and allows the nib to flex and give different line widths. The flat nib is then raised to give the curve to the nib and then the "Bash & Ball" operation gives the curl to the end of the nib and tightens it.
After all of the operations the nibs are again polished and then they are plated with 22 carat gold and treated with a Patented surface active coating.
Educational Range Assembly
A wide range of Education items are produced using components bought in along with in-house fabricated items. Generally hand assembly using jigs, fixtures along with fly presses, air operated screwdrivers, guillotines are used to assemble the products.
Inspection is carried out to ensure that any thermometers, timers, weights etc comply with the laid down specification. Although the products may be aimed at the younger age group the accuracy of the items is remarkable high.
Packing
After assembly the pens are stored in cartons in bulk and some of our Special Imprint production is despatched in this manner. However the majority of our Production is packed into some form of Retail / Commercial packaging. This can be a straightforward box of one dozen, blistered onto a card, in an assorted wallet, or a display. The permutations seem almost endless.
Due to the sheer variety of different packs which we produce we have a team of Operators packing by hand, no machine so far has duplicated the versatility of a pair of human hands. We also have various machines on which we blister pack pens and markers onto cards, collate pens for placing into wallets, and assemble cartons around a dozen stick pens.
A significant portion of the output is shrink wrapped into a clear plastic envelope and the film shrunk tightly around the pack by means of heat.
Certain of the Fountain pen range is blister packed onto cards within a small vacuum formed tray. The tray being used to carry spare ink cartridges, nib units etc. these trays are vacuum formed on site.
Art & Craft Materials
Colours - Liquids
These paints are characterised by being ready for use straight from the bottle, tube or tub.
The paints are initially made by mixing the ingredients together on a high power blender, whereby the Pigments are dispersed within the Extenders and Binding Agents. Small amounts of Preservatives and Surfactants are added as necessary. An intermediate operation on the higher quality paints e.g. Classic, is to grind the paint to reduce the particle size, thereby increasing the light reflectance.
The bulk paint is then transferred to the filling machines and pumped into the designated container which, in certain cases, has been Screen Printed on-site. Generally the Colours products are Finished packs in their own right and pass directly to the Warehouse for storage and despatch. Some products e.g. Colour Tubs do pass through the Packing Department for assembly into Sets.
Pencils
Pencil products are purchased in a semi-finished state always at least having been lacquered with their paint finish this most often being with a coloured lacquer but can be a clear shine finish.
The pencils receive their graphics by means of hot foil stamping where a heated metal die presses an imprint foil against the pencil face so that print is transferred.
A percentage of pencil have a metal ferrule into which a rubber eraser is glued.