I have been engraving a lot of ink pens lately and purchased the automated conveyor to help speed things up but I'm running into a bottle neck at the repackaging step. When the pens arrive, each one is in a little clear plastic sleeve and the vendor wants the pens put back in these sleeves. We did an order yesterday that was over 1000 pens and it took a great deal of time to put each one back. Its hard to make money when you're standing around inserting pens into plastic sleeves. I'm sure the vendor would be open to other packaging options but I need a good one before I go to them.
I have thought about making some eva foam trays and just put the pens in there but that would take up a bunch of space.
I then thought about some sort of automated machine that has a role of that thin plastic sleeve and a pen would drop in and then a hot knife would seal the ends but I don't know what that would be called.
I don't have much room left in the shop for more machines (not on Kev's level yet but its getting tight), so whatever it is, it will need to have a compact footprint.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Trey