Colognia Installs More Martin Automatic Nonstop Technology
- Published: December 15, 2022
One of the Czech Republic’s largest label converters, Colognia press a.s., continued its investment in Martin Automatic technology with an MBSF unwind splicer and LRD rewinder with slitting capability fitted to its new Gallus Labelmaster 440 press at Kolin, some 70km east of the country’s capital city, Prague. The new equipment joins previous Martin nonstop unwind and rewind technology fitted to Colognia’s Gallus RCS 330 presses in 2010 and 2015.
Colognia press sells its labels, shrink sleeves, and flexible packaging to 18 different countries. Major market sectors served include food and drink, chemical and cosmetic, and pharmaceutical, but the company also satisfies demand for its products from the automotive, electrotechnical and logistics areas.
Colognia press has its own in-house DtP studio capable of making Asahi flexo plates (up to 174 lpi) and its own screens. In addition to its four Gallus flexo presses, it has a digital print department that includes a Gallus Labelfire flexo/hybrid, an HP Indigo WS 8600 and an EFI Jetrion 4900 ML.
The first Martin Automatic equipment was installed at Colognia in 2010, when an MBS non-stop unwind/splicer and twin-spindle LRD rewinder with auto-transfer capability were installed to work with the company’s newly acquired Gallus RCS 330 combination flexo/screen servo-driven press. The Martin machines allowed non-stop production on the highly sophisticated Gallus press, which was essential for the pharmaceutical market where point sizes were small, and characters needed to be reproduced accurately.
With rapid payback on the Martin investment of less than two years, it was a simple decision in 2015 when Colognia press installed a second RCS 330 press. This time, with less floorspace to work with, Martin’s compact MBSC and STR models offered the solution. By replicating non-stop capability on its Gallus presses, Colognia was able to offer the back-up capability that many of its customers demand and improve the overall quality of its printed products.
It is the capability of Martin to adapt its technology to any situation that came to the fore when the latest investment was put in place. Already tight for space and actively seeking larger premises, Dušan Převrátil had no option but to install the new Labelmaster with its operator side close to an external wall. The problem was that this left insufficient space at the infeed end of the press for the operator to bring the blank rolls into the Martin MBSF unit on the same side. Martin supplied a reverse direction unwind/splicer allowing rolls to be loaded from the opposite side.
This posed another problem for single-person operation, because while the new roll was being loaded, the operator could not see what was happening on the press. This solution was simple too, with a camera fitted at the delivery end of the press feeding a monitor on the opposite side at the Martin MBSF unit.
The result dovetails well with Colognia’s declared business model that is based on Lean Manufacturing, Automation, Smooth B2B Processes, and Continuous Performance Improvement.
Learn more at www.martinautomatic.com and www.cologniapress.com.
