Customized Absorbent Product Manufacturing with Graphic Segregation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for producing absorbent products with customized graphics are limited by low print quality, slow manufacturing speeds, high costs, and lack of flexibility, making it challenging to efficiently produce and segregate customized articles from non-customized ones during high-speed manufacturing.
Innovation Solution
A system that uses sensors and controllers to detect custom graphics on substrates, synchronize their placement in packages, and label them with corresponding identity graphics, allowing for the efficient production and packaging of customized absorbent articles alongside non-customized ones, utilizing a combination of online and offline printing processes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If non-contact printing is used to print customized graphics, then flexibility to change graphics is improved, but manufacturing speed deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by printing customized graphics on substrates before the substrates enter the high-speed converting process. The non-contact printing system prepares the substrates with custom graphics in advance, allowing the subsequent converting process to operate at high speed without interruption. This resolves the contradiction by decoupling the graphic printing operation from the high-speed manufacturing process.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the manufacturing process into two distinct stages: a preliminary graphic printing stage using non-contact printing, and a subsequent high-speed converting stage. This segmentation allows each stage to optimize for its specific requirements - the printing stage for flexibility and quality, and the converting stage for speed and efficiency.
2Productivity
If contact printing is used to print graphics on substrates, then manufacturing speed is improved, but graphic quality and customization flexibility deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces mechanical contact printing systems with non-contact printing technology. This substitution eliminates the mechanical contact that limits speed and quality, enabling both high-speed operation and high graphic quality through digital printing methods that can rapidly change designs without physical contact with the substrate.
3Productivity
If high-speed converting process is used to assemble absorbent articles, then productivity is improved, but ability to segregate customized articles from non-customized articles deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses visual identification through graphic patterns and colors on substrates to enable segregation. Customized substrates have distinct graphic patterns that serve as identifiers, allowing detection and separation systems to distinguish customized articles from non-customized ones during the high-speed converting process without requiring complex mechanical segregation mechanisms.
Data Source
Figure 1A~1B
Figure 2A~2C
Figure 3A~3B
AI summary
The present disclosure involves absorbent articles having customized graphics disposed inside packages labeled as containing customized articles. During the manufacturing process, customized absorbent articles are constructed with article identity graphics, and the packages to contain the customized articles are labeled with package identity graphics. A controller uses article and package identity graphics to track the manufacture of the customized articles and synchronize placement of the customized articles in the appropriately labeled packages. The methods disclosed herein provides for the manufacture of customized absorbent articles in series with the manufacture of absorbent articles having non-custom graphics. The substrates and/or components having the custom graphics in the manufacturing process are detected by a sensor that provides a feedback signal to a controller. The controller, in turn, commands a packing system to place the customized absorbent articles in packages; label the packages with a package identity graphic; and thereby create customized absorbent products.