Swiss converter Permapack’s third Gallus RCS 330 press, a 10 colour flexo/screen combination line dedicated to production with filmic substrates greater than 100 micron, was installed with Martin Automatic MBSF butt splice and LRD transfer rewind units.
Custom built to match the performance of the Gallus line, the Martin units handle 1,016mm rolls at 150m/min. The aim was to reduce waste of expensive material and cut back on machine downtime, which, with a top of the range machine like the RCS 330, is expensive by the minute. Mark Lehmann, head of Permapack’s Packaging Division, confirms: “One machine length of material can easily represent 8 per cent of the entire roll, so any saving is valuable”.
He says the number 3 Gallus RCS generates appreciably more turnover than the number 2 machine, partly because of the Martin equipment, but also because of the different job structure that Permapack uses on it.
“Even when you take into account the more expensive substrates we are using on number 3 machine, the improvement is still better than 50 per cent. I estimate we save approximately CHF180,000/year in reduced substrate waste alone with the Martin equipment, plus the additional savings on machine downtime versus stopping the press and changing the rolls manually,” he reveals.
With such a rapid payback on investment, he had no second thoughts about specifying Martin Automatic equipment for the number 4 Gallus RCS 330, installed in August. Like the number 3 machine, it is a 10 colour line largely devoted to special jobs.
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