BRIGHT, Robert, Charles (10 Kings Meadow, Kings Langley, Hertfordshire WD4 8RT, GB)
CLAIMS
1. Method for putting together short runs of blank plastic personalized substrates with blank paper substrates correlated with the unique computerized data contained in the plastic substrate itself, the said method being characterized by the following operational steps: the blank plastic card is fed from a loading hopper (1) , read by a reader (2) connected to the computer (15), passed to the pick-up station (3), and picked up by the manipulator (13), which has a sucker (7), to position the said plastic card under the applicator (6) in order to join it physically to the blank paper substrate supplied by the feeder (8), for printing simultaneously with the blank paper substrate by the printer (11) connected to the computer (15) which in turn is connected to an associated database.
2. Method according to Claim 1, in which the reading of the blank plastic card by the reader employs a magnetic strip, a microchip/microchips or optical reading.
3. Method according to the preceding claims, in which the blank plastic card and the blank paper substrate are physically put together using natural glues or any chemical adhesive contained in the tank (10) .
4. Method according to the preceding claims, in which the computer (15) is an ordinary computer terminal connected to the reader (2) , a database and the inkjet printer (11).
5. Method according to the preceding claims, in which once the blank plastic card has been bonded to the blank paper substrate and printed, the two-part document is removed by the output conveyor (12) .
6. Method according to the preceding claims, in which the printer (11) connected to the terminal (15) is an ordinary colour inkjet printer supplied with water-based or plastic resin ink or any other printer capable of personalizing the blank paper substrates and the blank plastic cards.
7. Method according to the preceding claims, in which the blank paper substrate may be any sheet of paper or colourless plastic polymer in any format. |
Apparatus for putting together short runs of blank personalized substrates
PRIOR ART
The present invention relates to processes for personalizing and mailing ordinary plastic cards. To make these cards, it is common to use integrated systems that put together the individual personalized paper substrate and plastic substrate, which together physically form the card. These traditional methods of assembly, generally known as "mailing" or "matching", technically speaking are simply systems in which two or more independent machines are put together. Feeders, conveyors, applicators and printers, in an appropriate sequence, physically and logically put together one or more plastic cards with a precisely determined paper substrate, so as unambiguously to correlate with each individual sheet bearing printed information and data the corresponding plastic card. This is done in order to enable the resulting plastic card to be passed on swiftly to the subsequent "stuffing" processes of folding and insertion for mailing. Recently, the growth of this type of card has led to a considerable fragmentation of runs or "jobs", forcing operators to take on numerous very short runs, in which the feeder
(8) and the loading hopper (1) are supplied with very small quantities of different paper substrates and plastic cards, respectively, to satisfy the considerable fragmentation of demand.
All the putting-together systems described above consist however of two quite separate paths that intersect only at the putting-together station. The first of these paths is that followed by the individual plastic cards, and the second is for the feeding, printing and transferring of the corresponding paper substrates .
In general terms, without going into the detail of the prior art, the broad outlines of the principle of operation can be said to be as follows:
the individual plastic cards, stored in a magazine or coming directly from pre-installed personalization systems, are carried by conveyors to an ordinary data- reading device which reads the data contained in the plastic cards themselves.
The said reading system can read and unambiguously identify the data contained in the plastic card irrespective of whether they are on a magnetic strip, in a microchip or directly printed on the card itself.
The data held on the plastic card and identified by the reader are the key used to interrogate ordinary databases holding all the information correlated therewith, including personal details, addresses, and banking and other information; in other words, all the details which are usually regarded as sensitive and confidential .
Having been collected, the information and data are then sent to a printer positioned at the start of the second path, where for each read plastic card it prints a single paper document to which it is essential that the corresponding plastic card be physically attached.
It is this stage that has hitherto always been the most delicate and technically critical stage of the entire putting-together system.
The origin of the problem lies in the fact that the two independent elements - the printed paper document and the corresponding plastic card - are conveyed simultaneously to the putting-together station where they are physically united, usually with the aid of ordinary adhesives or two-sided labels. The resulting two-part document is then sent on for subsequent
processing and dispatch.
The still unsolved problem of the above traditional method lies in the difficulty of achieving certainty of matching up the right two elements, and it is perfectly possible that during the independent movement of the two entities along the two independent paths of the system, errors of synchronization or recognition will occur. These synchronization errors can even cause the wrong two elements (plastic card and printed sheet) to be joined together. This type of error is the real weak point of the system and is a constant source of problems, especially in view of the sensitivity of the data involved.
DESCRIPTION
It is an object of the present invention to describe an innovative way of putting together personalized substrates that is cheap, quick, reliable and above all versatile; in other words, that will make it possible to print even very short runs of paper substrates and plastic cards carrying the same graphic design, without necessarily having to interrupt the run or "job". The present method consists in the basic concept of avoiding creating within the system the hazardous dualism described above. To avoid this conceptually insoluble problem, open as it is to mismatching errors, the present patent application sets out to describe an innovative method that does not feed through the system the two corresponding but separate elements which will later go to make up the complete plastic card. To overcome this problem, the present invention discloses a new method in which both the paper substrate and the plastic card are printed only after the plastic card has been read, passed to the putting-together station and physically fixed to the substrate itself. This innovative approach not only eliminates the possibility of mismatches between the two abovementioned elements
but also makes it possible to print simultaneously both the blank paper substrate supplied by the feeder (8) and the plastic cards supplied by the hopper (1) . To make this single printing step possible, the method avoids printing the sensitive data on the paper substrate until it is fixed to the plastic card. Thus, according to the present invention, it is not until the plastic card has been read, passed to the putting- together station and united with a completely blank paper substrate that it is printed with the corresponding data contained in its plastic substrate.
The most suitable printing technique for printing on the blank paper substrate and on the plastic card the data corresponding to the data held in computerized form in the plastic card itself, is inkjet printing using a matrix print head employing water-based or resin inks. The latter are especially preferred for their polymerizable plastic resin base which works well even on plastic materials. However, there is no reason why any other known printing technique that would make the said operation easier or economically advantageous should not be used. The present invention therefore aims to describe a method of making personalized plastic cards from a blank plastic card bonded to a similarly completely blank paper substrate. The said plastic card and the said blank paper substrate, once firmly united, allow the operator to print on both of these any image, number and personalized decoration. This greatly speeds up the process of loading both the feeder of the paper substrates (8) and that of the plastic cards, which, being both blank, can be printed simultaneously with any image or colour to quickly produce even extremely limited runs of cards without having to load the feeder (8) and the hopper (1) with the appropriate paper and plastic substrates each time.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Fig. 1 shows a general view of the apparatus described in the present invention in which may be seen the plastic card loading hopper (1), the magnetic strip reader (2), the pick-up station (3), the track (4), the motor (5), the applicator (6), the sucker (7), the feeder of blank paper substrates (8), the conveyor (9), the tank of adhesive (10), the printer (11), the output conveyor (12), the manipulator (13) and the discharge chute (14) .
EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION
Referring to Figure 1, the method described in the present invention for putting together personalized substrates with paper substrates correlated with the unique data, uses a set of apparatuses consisting of a hopper (1) for feeding the blank personalized plastic cards to a reader (2) capable of reading the magnetic strip, or the microchip, or any other identifying character positioned on the plastic card, in accordance with ISO standard 7810/16. The said reader (2) reads the data contained in the plastic card and then sends these data to a computer (15) . The said computer (15) looks for the data associated with the name in an associated database and sends the returned data directly to the printer (11) . Having been read by the reader (2), the blank plastic card is sent to the station (3) where it is picked up by the manipulator
(13), which travels along the track (4) powered by the motor (5) .
The said manipulator (13) , being provided with the sucker (7), transfers the blank plastic card to the position where it is to be put together with the blank paper substrate.
Each individual blank paper substrate is supplied by the feeder (8) and moved by the belt conveyor (9) underneath the applicator (6).
When the blank plastic card and the blank paper substrate are both in the correct position, the blank plastic card is pressed by the applicator (6) onto the blank paper substrate by means of the pneumatic piston of the applicator (β) . To ensure the adhesion of the blank paper substrate to the plastic card, a small amount of adhesive previously applied by a metered delivery device (10) is deposited on the area of contact.
It is only after this bonding operation has been performed that the blank plastic card and the blank paper substrate to which it is bonded are printed, the printing device (11) being operated under the control of the computer (15) . The said printing device essentially consists of an inkjet head using water- based or resin inks, though the latter are preferable. Its means of transverse translational movement enable all the correlated data present in the computer (15) and sent to the printer (11) to be printed correctly on the blank paper substrate.
At this point the process is concluded and the paper substrate with its card is discharged by the output conveyor (12) .