New De La Rue Innovations

De La Rue’s Authentication division recently presented interesting developments in digital security printing and product traceability.

The first development is a novel inkjet system for secure digital print, called JetSecure. It consists of an open architecture press which is agnostic to printhead technology, and which allows for the use of mixed printheads and for printing in sync and register in a single pass.

The printheads are arranged in specialised print bars that can carry different printheads. Each print bar 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, allowing for a different press configuration for every print job.

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

De La Rue has created a vision system that works with the print process, analysing print quality, and ensuring minimum wastage and consistent reproducibility of the effects on each label. The press uses commercial printheads that have been modified 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 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 UV light, thanks to very high registration techniques. 

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

• 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

De La Rue developments in the field of product traceability include a partnership with Antares Vision to combine 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.

Another development relates to alternative aggregation techniques for product track and trace, which address the challenge posed by installing full aggregation systems on production lines. Some manufacturers or products that are not accustomed to track and trace may find it hard to accept the initial cost and disruption created by such systems, which 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 expert Persequor (PSQR), De La Rue investigated ways to create a similar and ‘good enough’ aggregation hierarchy using data analytics, with little to 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 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, Head of Technical Product Marketing, De La Rue.

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 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) created between the sequence and number of labels applied to the products and the containers the products have most likely been placed in.