Latest De La Rue Innovations in Digital Security Printing and Product Traceability

During a recent online technology event, De La Rue’s Authentication division presented interesting developments in the field of digital security printing and product traceability.

The digital security print developments were presented by Martin Bannon, Head of Secure Digital Print. He announced JetSecure™ – De La Rue’s novel inkjet system for secure digital print and discussed the company’s broader capability in secure inks and personalisation features across other digital print assets.

JetSecure is an open architecture, single pass press which is agnostic to printhead technology, allowing for the use of mixed printheads and for printing in sync and register in a single pass. Any printhead type can be used in combination with this technology (a printhead is a component in an inkjet printer that deposits ink onto a substrate). JetSecure printheads are selected according to the type of ink and substrate used, as well as the effects and resolution desired.

The printheads are arranged in specialised print bars, with each print bar able to carry different printheads. Each of the print bars used in the JetSecure press is a separate fully functioning print process that can be rapidly switched to any location in the print sequence. The number of print bars is flexible, which allows for a different press configuration for every job to be printed, giving flexibility to designers to create unique effects.

The technology offers flexibility in terms of resolution (including bespoke print or image resolutions), drop size/density, and dot size, which hinders any attempt at simulation. It also uses a bespoke graphical user interface to optimise the potential of the mixed printhead process, as well as bespoke software to enable a dynamic choice of multi-colour layering.

De La Rue has created a unique vision system that works with the print process, analysing print quality, ensuring minimum wastage and consistent reproducibility of the effects on each label. The press uses commercial printheads with innovative modifications to produce security features in layered combinations, with novel level 1 overt and level 2 covert properties that are beyond the capability of commercial digital printing technologies.

De La Rue has several patents pending on the JetSecure process and print features – having designed this technology in collaboration with Prototype & Production Systems Inc (PPSI), which has contributed its intellectual property.

The security and traceability features include:

• Novel level 1 optical effect inks with switching and chevron effects.

• ‘Colour-matching’ inks which emit the same colour in visible light as in UV light, thanks to very high registration techniques.

• Multiple inks that are invisible in normal light but that emit different colours at two different wavelengths in UV light.

• Invisible 2D datamatrix codes printed in IR-visible ink.

• Variable encrypted micropatterns that correspond with the unique identifier on a product or label. During the validation process, a cryptographic ‘handshake’ between a pair of public/private keys lets the validation app know where the pattern is located within the design, and what it should look like.

• A fully serialised scratch-off label that combines an overt and covert code. While the overt code can be scratched off, the covert code remains on the label. Both codes can be used in conjunction with the barcode on the base label to produce a bi-directional lookup search capability.

• Inkjet tactility and the potential for latent images.

In addition, De La Rue is working on a solution for incorporating taggants into inkjet ink.

The company is planning to offer its digital security printing technology to the entire label and packaging supply chain, by either making the JetSecure press available to customers who will do their own printing, or by carrying out the printing itself for customers who require finished labels.

Product traceability innovations

Other developments in the field of product traceability were presented by Barry Holloway, Head of Technical Product Marketing.

One such development, in partnership with Antares Vision, combines the data analytics and scanning capabilities of De La Rue’s product traceability platform (Traceology®), with Antares’ expertise in implementing data capture systems across a wide range of production facilities.

The solution consists of the following:

• A unique code supplied by De La Rue, in the form of a physical label or digital code, stored in the Traceology central system.

• Antares’ production data capture system, capturing label activation and aggregation data on product manufacturing lines.

• Antares’ shipping data capture at warehouse level, to provide a complete picture of where the product should be.

• De La Rue’s data storage system, where production and shipping data are uploaded to an EPCIS database.

• De La Rue dashboards and notification system – scans carried out in the market with a mobile app or web verification are matched against scans of the unique code in the database. If there is a difference between where the code should be and where it actually is, De La Rue sends out a diversion alert.

Another development relates to alternative aggregation techniques for product tracking. The development addresses the challenge posed by installing full aggregation systems on production lines when implementing track and trace programmes. Some manufacturers or products that are not accustomed to track and trace may find it hard to accept the initial cost and disruption this can bring. Such systems involve setting up cameras and label printers to link the label to the product and then record the entire packaging hierarchy.

Working with track and trace software experts Persequor (PSQR), De La Rue investigated ways to create a similar and ‘good enough’ aggregation hierarchy using data analytics, which would have little or no impact on the production line.

‘Full aggregation systems are necessary and appropriate in many cases where product traceability is called for, but not in all cases. As an alternative, instead of implementing camera systems and scanning processes on the production line, what if we could capture data from, say, the labelling machines that are already on the production lines, and use analytics to build a picture of what products were packaged into which boxes, pallets and therefore shipped to which location?’ explained Barry Holloway.

The result of the De La Rue/PSQR partnership is a solution called VILA, or Virtual Item Level Aggregation. It consists of first pre-configuring the output from printers attached to cartonisers and palletisers with production line characteristics such as speed and production time. The output is then collected, and a relationship (based on predictive analytics) is created between the order and number of labels applied to the products and the containers they have most likely been placed in.

The solution is currently being trialled by PSQR.