Georg Schick is a bit sad. “I would have liked to present my ‘baby’ in person,” he says. The Product Manager Track & Trace is refer­ring to the new S 500 seri­al­iza­tion plat­form, which would normally have been presented to the public at the Inter­pack in May – but then coro­n­avirus hit. Schick is passionate about the new Uhlmann product and is convinced that the time is more than ripe for it. “The USP Seri­al­iza­tion Plat­form, the prede­cessor of the S 500, was already a bit outdated,” he says. More­over, the require­ments for seri­al­iza­tion in the indi­vidual coun­tries are now so different that the USP was no longer flex­ible enough to support them. “And due to the high purchase price, it also cost us many poten­tial customers.” This is set to change with the S 500.

Matching price to demand

A key factor here is Asia. Although the demand for such machines in this region is high, suffi­cient purchasing power is often lacking. “In many discus­sions with customers, the higher prices for an Uhlmann machine compared to competi­tors were crit­i­cized,” says Schick. “There­fore, we have revised the concept in this regard and devel­oped the S 500. Our fantastic devel­op­ment team delivers this machine at market price, in proven Uhlmann quality!”

Flex­ible seri­al­iza­tion depending on country

The S 500 has different func­tional features, and customers can configure the machine indi­vid­u­ally. This is because the require­ments for seri­al­iza­tion can vary widely from one country to the next, depending on where the product is deliv­ered. “In Europe, for example, we need a Tamper Evident secu­rity seal, and here we only need seri­al­iza­tion, whereas we don’t need aggre­ga­tion to pallet level. In other coun­tries, it’s different,” explains Georg Schick. The new S 500 offers customers multiple options. “With the S 500, we are also moving into bottle seri­al­iza­tion, because the Amer­ican market, for example, simply can’t get away from bottles,” says Schick. Thus, in addi­tion to bottle labeling for seri­al­iza­tion, the product port­folio of the S 500 family will also be supple­mented by 360° bottle inspec­tion.

There have also been improve­ments on another level: “Previ­ously, it simply took too long for our machines to reach the customer. If, for example, a new law is passed in Indonesia and the machine has to be ready for use in half a year, then we have to adapt accord­ingly.” And that, according to Schick, has been accom­plished.

The customer can choose from various options:

A hopeful look into the future – despite Corona

In the end, although Schick didn’t get to present his “baby” person­ally, he is never­the­less satis­fied: “The launch took place in Taiwan, a key market for this upgrade. It is fitting that we are intro­ducing the product in the South­east Asia region, and I’m proud that precisely these colleagues were able to present the S 500 there.” Inter­ac­tive record­ings now also enable digital presen­ta­tions, and so we were also able to present the S 500 digi­tally at a trade show in China. “We are well prepared and can now also quickly step in with a digital solu­tion in the event that trade shows or sympo­siums are canceled”, says Schick.