The Tesa company in Denmark installed nilpeter Nilpeter's eight-color UV flexo press. The installation of the FA-4 greatly increased overall production capacity.
Tesa AG is a manufacturer of industrial adhesive products and total solutions. For their extensive product range and their own tesa label production line, the local subsidiary Tesa A/S has a modern sales center at its Nordic headquarters. Its self-adhesive products are mainly supplied to the pharmaceutical industry. In December 2007, the Tesa label production line installed Nilpeter Nilpeter's 8-color UV flexo press. Gerhard Schmidt, logistics manager of Tesa Nordics, and the production manager of Birkerød Tesa talked about their initial experience in printing practice and why they chose Nilpeter Nilpeter.
Tesa AG sells more than 6,000 devices to various locations and covers more than 100 countries. In the Nordic headquarters, there are 90 workers who look after a large warehouse for industrial and consumer products.
The main customer group of label products is the pharmaceutical industry
Next to the warehouse, Tesa has its own label manufacturing company for almost 30 years. 28 workers work 5 days a week, and 5 presses are operated with 3 shifts. The production ratio of film adhesives, such as polyethylene and polypropylene, is increasing. Only the number of PE tags has exceeded the number of paper tags. About 20 years ago, Tesa's labeling department began to watch the pharmaceutical industry and witness its continuous development. About 80% of print jobs come from this industry. Therefore, production and work processes rely on the special requirements of pharmaceutical companies, such as documentation and labeling quality control.
With the investment in new printing technology, the company has managed to develop in this successful and mature business area. At that time, letterpress printing was the dominant printing method. Since some producers of narrow web presses have stopped producing letterpress printers, Gerhard Schmidt does not want to invest in this technology field again. Gerhard Schmidt explained: Instead, Tesa decided to choose UV flexo printing, and choosing UV flexo also chose full speed promotion. The reason for the decision to purchase Nilpeter FA-LINE is because it has a modular architecture and servo technology that can replace the two old letterpress printing presses. FA-4 is equipped with eight-color printing unit and die-cutting unit, with a breadth of 420mm and a flip frame that can achieve four-color flip. It also has a laminating unit.
Stable and consistent color reproduction is an important criterion for quality judgment
In the spring of 2007, at the beginning of the installation of a new press for this project, digital printing was also one of the alternatives. Niels Bjerregaard explained that digital printing was not selected because of its poor performance in reproducing special colors. Good color reproduction capability is an important factor in the pharmaceutical industry. In order to achieve a clear and accurate color tone, special inks must be specially formulated. This leads to frequent changes in ink, so the advantages of digital printing itself are not reflected here.
During the FA-4 pre-installation test, its print quality left a perfect impression. For Niels Bjerregaard, an important factor in judging the print quality is the consistency of color and even the consistency of color after repeated printing. It is therefore crucial for them to be able to store all production technical parameters. This is because once the hue is accurate, it can even reproduce accurate colors in a few weeks. Other quality criteria are accurate and good color reproduction. Because the pharmaceutical industry labels need to print a lot of text information, so the latter is particularly important. More and more information needs to be printed on pharmaceutical labels, fonts are getting smaller and smaller, and even small letters and fonts must be printed accurately.
Sleeve technology reduces downtime
According to Gerhard Schmidt, there was no difference in the printing effect observed after the multi-day testing of the new machine. The effect of printing is both stable and consistent. For the pharmaceutical industry, Tesa usually prints product lines using a unified layout and different color combinations. If there are special color requirements, ink can be blended internally or spot color ink can be purchased.
Nilpeter Nilpeter's easy-to-install sleeve technology shows great advantages for these different color versions of the product line. Due to the shortening of loading and unloading time, the time required for the entire conversion process is also minimized. Under the premise of shaftless transmission sleeve technology, screen printing cylinders can be quickly and easily converted.
Wider and faster
The effect of the installation of the new flexo printing machine is a significant increase in production capacity. The increase in production capacity depends on its wider width. The 420mm width allows a large number of operations to run side by side on the conveyor belt. In addition, FA-4 printing speed is faster. Niels Bjerregaard said: The previous two old machines were running at speeds of 30 to 40 meters per minute, while the FA-4 could reach 175 meters per minute. Even if some medical labels do not allow printing at such a rapid rate, FA-4's production capacity is still several times that of previous old machines.
The overall increase in production capacity allows Tesa to be more flexible in production control. For example, when some temporary, unplanned needs of the customer need to be responded to in a timely manner, the company can provide a very short lead time with flexible production. The company monitors the level of product inventory for its customers to ensure that their needs are met and that new labels are produced in a timely manner. This is very convenient for the customer, but also means that the label production plan given to Tesa can be maximized.
Use powerful technical resources effectively
Gerhard Schmidt said that today's new presses use high-end printing technology that is as efficient as possible. The benefits obtained by enterprises are inseparable from the efficiency of printing.
In order to increase the productivity of new machines, Tesa invested in a particularly advanced work platform system. This modular system allows for organized operations around the printing line while also storing the necessary machine parts and tools according to actual needs. In this way, the rollers, sleeves, paper guide rollers and printing plates are all readily accessible, thus avoiding delays in the search process, allowing for a smooth replacement and reducing replacement time. These system characteristics are in line with Tesa's most efficient production process requirements.
Many people in the pharmaceutical industry who come to audit, test and visit the printing work have emphasized that the system is both clean and organized, and the operation is convenient and can leave a good impression on customers and visitors.