Labels go on wet bottles at the end of a line, so reliability matters more than a headline speed. We supply self-adhesive, shrink-sleeve and hot-melt glue labelers for round, square and flat bottles, with date coding upstream of packing.
The three labelling technologies differ less in appearance than in cost structure. Self-adhesive labelling is the simplest machine, changes between label designs in minutes and suits several SKUs in modest volumes, but the label itself costs the most per unit. Shrink-sleeve labelling gives the lowest label cost and handles complex bottle shapes and full-body decoration, but needs a steam or hot-air tunnel, and the finished look depends on film quality and tunnel settings. Hot-melt glue labelling, with paper or OPP labels, gives the highest speed and the lowest label cost per unit, at the price of slower changeover and tighter requirements on bottle positioning.
Two practical points decide whether a labeller performs in your plant. First, bottles arrive wet and sometimes cold from the filler, so air knives, wipers and the amount of condensation on the surface influence real accuracy more than the catalogue speed figure. Second, agree in writing the accuracy you are buying — placement tolerance, label skew and the reject rate you will accept — and how it will be measured at acceptance. A speed figure without a tolerance is not a specification.