Flexcon takes more Titans

20 April 2009



US group reaffirms its faith in slitters from Atlas


Bobst Group company Atlas Converting Equipment has supplied another six Titan SR Series twin-shaft cantilever slitter rewinders to North American based supplier of pressure sensitive films and adhesive materials Flexcon. This brings the total number of SR machines now in full production in the US and Europe for this customer to 18 machines, all commissioned since 1993.

The Titan SR6, SR7 and the six latest generation SR8 machines were all designed to meet Flexcon’s specific requirements. The company is an ISO 9001:2000 manufacturer of custom

PS film and adhesive products for applications ranging from product identification labels to point-of-purchase and promotional graphic films, durable markings, novelty stickers and decals, packaging, bonding and mounting. Entering its sixth decade, the family owned business has experienced steady growth from a single location in Spencer, Massachusetts, to a global operation with sales of more than US$350mn.

The US company produces thousands of off-the-shelf, custom and speciality products, including a line of DigiPRO materials compatible with HP Indigo digital presses, DPM Aply1000, a bubble-free labelstock for durable product markings, and Flexmount performance adhesives for bonding to low surface energy plastics and other challenging substrates.

“Continuing trends in the pressure sensitive film and adhesive industry to run ‘just-in-time’ deliveries of multiple production runs meant that this requirement was one of our primary concerns during the selection and specification of the Titan machines,” reveals director of engineering Ed Allie.

The 1,800 mm wide Titan SR machines have a maximum rewind diameter of 800 mm on 76 and 152 mm cores, running at production speeds of up to 600 m/min. Their capability of handling a wide variation of PSA materials at high production speeds was an essential part of the specification at Flexcon.

The SR8 cantilever slitter (pictured) has a wide range of automation options which enabled Flexcon to choose a specification to meet its particular requirements. An automatic system positions male and female knives to a claimed accuracy of +/-0.15 mm within 90 sec. This feature reduces the makeready downtime for changing slit widths, enabling major increases in productivity.

Laser core positioning is said to provide a very quick, accurate guide for the operator in positioning the new rewind cores for re-starting the slitting process.

Handling and unloading of the finished reels is also an important consideration. The SR machines are fitted with an automatic reel stripping system that allows the operator to safely strip the finished reel packages off the rewind shafts and on to unloading trolleys.

According to Atlas, its versatility has made the SR8 the most successful in the Titan range: more than 180 machines have been sold to converters worldwide for a wide range of applications since its launch. It features laser core and auto knife positioning, web widths up to 1,800 mm, 800 mm rewind diameter and speeds up to 700 m/min.

All Titan machines have the benefit of Bobst Group’s global customer service and support operations, and Bobst Group North America, in Charlotte, North Carolina, assisted with the installation and commissioning of the equipment at Flexcon.

Atlas is pleased with the Titan range’s “robust sales performance” in the Americas region during 2008, particularly during Q4 in the US and Canada.

A new customer from the labels industry based in the US mid-west confirmed an order for two CT610 automatic turret models, together with an SR8 for high volume production of various types of labels. Several other cantilever slitters were also sold to other North American converters towards the end of last year.

Further south, four of the more compact ER610 slitter were sold to Oben Licht Holding Group, in Peru, where two of the machines were commissioned last April at the company’s new facility in Lima for slitting plain, metallised and extrusion coated OPP films. The third slitter is due to be installed in Lima in April this year and the fourth will start production at a site near Buenos Aires, Argentina, around the same time.

The addition of a new film production line in Argentina has increased Oben Licht’s annual production capacity to approximately 100,000 tonne of BOPP film, making the group now one of the largest producers of PP film in South America. It supplies film to all the countries in Latin America.

The ER610 was also the preferred choice of several other converters in Mexico last year, while the top selling SR8 was chosen by many of the country’s flexible packaging converters, as well as a speciality self-adhesive tape producer in South America.

A lower cost slitter aimed at smaller converters who produce lower volumes of flexible materials, the ER610 is claimed to help to protect the environment with reduced power consumption, no hydraulics and un-lubricated compressed air.


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