The Bobst Group is seeking to transform the labels market in the US with its range of digital label presses delivering high-quality labels with high productivity at the lowest TCO in the industry. Today, BOBST revealed how one early adopter company in the US has benefited from one of its core innovations in digital label production – the LB701-UV. 

Aptech Graphics, based in North Providence Rhode Island, is a specialist label printer committed to four cornerstones of business: quality, value, time to market and service. To ensure it could continue to deliver on these values at the highest level, the company was keen to upgrade its digital offering for its customers, in particular by providing the highest speed and productivity while maintaining optimum quality. To fulfill this need, Aptech Graphics opted for a BOBST Mouvent LB701-UV.

“We invested in the LB701-UV because we knew that it would be very beneficial for our business,” said Mark Mader, President of Aptech Graphics. “It has exceptional quality and color consistency, which means we can guarantee our customers the accuracy and exceptional finish that they need. It is simple to use and has a very high productivity, enabling us to deliver with greater speed and efficiency than ever before. We can now turn around jobs of 330,000 linear feet in one week in a single shift operation, which is outstanding. Best of all, we can deliver high-quality outputs in a timely manner and at very competitive prices. Our customers have been more than satisfied.”

The LB701-UV enables digital label production for short and medium run prime and commercial labels, with no trade-offs. It is associated with very high productivity, exceptional print quality and the widest color gamut in its category – printing with up to 6 colors plus optional white with 70% opacity. The machine has an extremely compact and ergonomic design, which does not compromise on print resolution (1,200 x 1,200 dpi), printing speed (up to 230 fpm – 70 m/min) or productivity (up to 800,000 square feet -75’000 sqm) per month with just one operator), all at the best TCO (total cost of ownership) in its category. Elements contributing to its excellent TCO include low initial investment, ongoing operational costs, quick set-up time and high productivity, allowing for higher profitability. 

The BOBST Mouvent LB701-UV was installed at Aptech Graphics in February 2020 with a CMYK configuration, and after a smooth and short set-up period, the company has been printing consistently with the machine since March, with output increasing month-on-month. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the company was able to easily pivot its output to industries experiencing exceptional demand (e.g. food, beverages, pharma). 

“Nowadays, after two years with the LB701-UV, Mader affirms: “It’s checking all the boxes that I had envisioned. The press has had an exceptional uptime which is very important from a digital standpoint, because it’s a sophisticated technology and has proven itself to be fairly low maintenance”.

As well as benefiting from the adaptability afforded by the BOBST self-developed Mouvent Technology, Aptech Graphics is also taking advantage of the option to simply upgrade the press with additional colors at any time. The company has recently upgraded the press with BOBST’s digital white ink and is now looking to add the two supplementary colors (orange and violet) as well. This will enlarge its capabilities and flexibility even further in terms of extended printing gamut and the variety of substrates that it can process, such as metalized and transparent label stock. 

The Bobst Group is pioneering a new printer category where customers experience all the benefits of digital production without any trade-offs. In a world where technologies are rapidly evolving, it is more important than ever for companies to constantly assess their partners and suppliers to remain competitive.

About BOBST
We are one of the world’s leading suppliers of substrate processing, printing and converting equipment and services for the label, flexible packaging, folding carton and corrugated board industries. Founded in 1890 by Joseph Bobst in Lausanne, Switzerland, BOBST has a presence in more than 50 countries, runs 19 production facilities in 11 countries and employs more than 5800 people around the world. The firm recorded a consolidated turnover of CHF 1.563 billion for the year ended December 31, 2021.

www.bobst.com

Long-time Nilpeter print shop, Seneca Label, has installed a new Nilpeter FB-Line to increase speed, efficiency, and quality. The Cleveland-based prime and customer-facing label print shop has a key focus on high quality standards and quick response times, which the new FB-Line will help them further accomplish.

Solutions That Stick With You
Family-owned for three generations, Seneca Label has decades of label printing experience with companies of all sizes and industries throughout the United States. In that time, Seneca has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and expertise, which they share with customers, making sure that their labels look great and stick right.

“The core of our business is prime and customer-facing labeling, which can be found on product packaging in big-box stores across the USA. Second to our customer-facing labels, we print many pharmaceutical and chemical labels,” says Kyle Hoopingarner, VP, Seneca Label, Inc.

High Quality and Short Response Times
“We’ve been a Nilpeter print shop for years, and while still printing via equipment from other manufacturers, we liked Nilpeter’s quality, robustness, and parts availability the best,” Hoopingarner continues.

“Our quality was already a top-priority, and something we are locally known for. Speed and customer response time are what win us new business, and this press accomplished that. With the new FB-Line we can print more of the labels we currently print, but faster, more efficiently, and with better quality,” he adds.

“We’re not planning to add any additional new equipment at this moment, but we’ll definitely consider Nilpeter first, when we get there,” Kyle Hoopingarner concludes.

Sophisticated Workhorse
The FB-Line is a sophisticated workhorse offering high ease of operation and superior printing quality. Available in 13” and 16” widths, the FB-Line is the perfect choice for the flexible label printer. Innovative automation features can be added according to requirements and combined with value-added features such as lamination, cold foil, hot foil, gravure, and screen printing.

About Seneca Label
At Seneca Label, a Cleveland, Ohio-based label company, they go above and beyond to develop innovative printing processes to make their customers’ labeling concepts a reality. Seneca Label prides themselves on fearlessly tackling label printing jobs, that other printers won’t touch, and remedying problem situations caused by competitors, who cut corners.

www.nilpeter.com

Easton, PA – Tower Products, Inc., a leading manufacturer of environmentally sensitive pressroom chemistry for the printing industry has been awarded the 2022 Innovative Application of Technology Award from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania.  The award will be presented at the iXchange Conference at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA on May 18, 2022.

Ben Franklin Technology Partners makes investments and funds innovation in established manufacturers and supports clients with in house experts and a network of proven business resources to help companies create and retain high paying, sustainable jobs by transforming technology into commercial success.

Tower Products was the recipient of four rounds of financing in the implementation of its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. This has allowed Tower Products to improve the manufacturing process and data information flow and reduce manufacturing costs. The new ERP System has also enhanced customer service and sales processes to better serve existing customers and attract new ones worldwide.

Rick Principato, CEO of Tower Products Inc., will accept the award on behalf of the entire Tower Products team which spent thousands of hours preparing, selecting and implementing the new ERP system.

www.towerproducts.com

Bean Station, TN – FILMtech Inc., an industry leader in metallized and barrier films, recently completed the installation of a new Titan Slitter ER610-DT in their 120,000 sq. ft. facility near Knoxville, Tennessee.

With the addition of this compact dual turret slitter, FILMtech can process web widths up to 65 inches and maximize productivity while increasing operator safety.

“This investment continues to support our narrow web customers growth and provides a more efficient use of space within our factory,” said FILMtech VP Operations Joey Barnard.

FILMtech, provides products and services for the flexible packaging and barrier industries including food and pet food packaging, construction, agricultural, aerospace, printing, labeling and industrial tapes markets. It is the exclusive North American licensee of CeramAlox® clear barrier products.

For additional information, visit www.filmtechinc.com.

Los Angeles, CA – Action Point, Inc (“Action” or “Action Packaging”) and Signature Flexible Packaging, Inc. (“Signature” and, together with Action, the “Company”), an H.I.G. Capital portfolio company, is pleased to announce that it has acquired Techflex Packaging, LLC (“Techflex”).

Headquartered in Gardena, CA, Techflex provides pouch converting capabilities to short-run, high-SKU count customers, primarily serving the food and medical end markets. The combination will allow the Company to provide a full-service flexible packaging product set to further meet the needs of its combined customer base. The acquisition strengthens the Company’s ability to provide comprehensive flexible packaging solutions and services to its customer base throughout North America.

“We are thrilled to support this strategic investment,” said Ryan Kaplan, Managing Director at H.I.G. Capital. “Techflex’s pouch converting capabilities represents a natural expansion of the Company’s existing capabilities on the West Coast.”

Burt Siegelman, Co-Owner of Techflex commented, “We look forward to the strategic alliance with Action and Signature. Techflex has been doing business with the Company for over two decades and it’s extremely exciting to finally bring our businesses together.”

Neil Kinney, Co-Owner of Techflex added, “The combined businesses will offer leading regional scale and a comprehensive product offering to our customers, while continuing to offer high quality packaging solutions.” 

In conjunction with the acquisition, the Company, including Techflex and Chromatic Labels, has rebranded as DazPak Flexible Packaging (“DazPak”), a newly integrated flexible packaging platform.

DazPak fills the growing need for flexible packaging in all forms. The benefits of flexible packaging are becoming more and more relevant as companies work to bring brands to market quickly, sustainably and more efficiently. Flexible high barrier packaging gives brands marketable graphics, while also reducing storage space requirements and freight costs over rigid packaging. DazPak represents the premier flexible packaging company on the West Coast through its combined capabilities, deep expertise, superior quality, and unmatched customer service.

“We created DazPak to take the friction out of the packaging process, making it easier and faster for our customers to get their product to market in high quality packaging. We’ve integrated the significant leadership, experience and talent from these companies, to bring our expertise in design, manufacturing, printing, and converting together under a single brand that delivers more value, service and choice to our customers,” said DazPak CEO, John Attayek.

About DazPak Flexible Packaging
DazPak is a flexible packaging company operating four facilities in Southern California that print and convert a full spectrum of flexible packaging solutions for the food & beverage, health & beauty, pet food, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and agricultural markets. Products include printed laminated rollstock, stand-up zipper pouches, stick packs and sachets, shrink sleeves, pressure sensitive labels, unprinted rollstock, pouches, bags and more.

For more information visit: dazpak.com 

About Techflex Packaging, LLC
TechFlex is a leading pouch converter focused on customized pouch solutions sold into the food and medical end markets, serving customers throughout North America from its manufacturing facility in Gardena, California.

About H.I.G. Capital
H.I.G. is a leading global alternative assets investment firm with over $47 billion of equity capital under management.* Based in Miami, and with offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Atlanta in the U.S., as well as international affiliate offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/ value-added approach:

1.    H.I.G.’s equity funds invest in management buyouts, recapitalizations and corporate carve-outs of both profitable as well as underperforming manufacturing and service businesses.

2.    H.I.G.’s debt funds invest in senior, unitranche and junior debt financing to companies across the size spectrum, both on a primary (direct origination) basis, as well as in the secondary markets. H.I.G. is also a leading CLO manager, through its WhiteHorse family of vehicles, and manages a publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance.

3.    H.I.G.’s real estate funds invest in value-added properties, which can benefit from improved asset management practices.

4.    H.I.G. Infrastructure focuses on making value-add and core plus investments in the infrastructure sector.

Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 300 companies worldwide. The firm’s current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of $30 billion.

For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at www.higcapital.com.

* Based on total capital commitments managed by H.I.G. Capital and affiliates.

Elk Grove Village, IL — SCREEN Americas announces the installation of its fourth continuous-feed inkjet press from the Truepress Jet520 series to Summit Direct Mail, Inc. of Dallas, Texas. The direct mail printer now has two presses from the Truepress Jet520ZZ series, one Truepress Jet520HD+ and one Truepress Jet520HD AD. The four presses reside in one of the company’s three facilities in the Dallas area and account for 80 percent of its total production.

Summit Direct Mail chose to designate its Truepress Jet520ZZ series to direct mail campaigns involving 8 ½” x 11″ letters printed on 60-pound uncoated stock and the Truepress Jet520HD series for postcards and self-mailers printed on coated stock. Because neither series requires preprinted shells, Summit Direct Mail’s direct mail marketing customers can make last minute changes to their campaigns based on the stock that is available.

Such flexibility retains business for Summit Direct Mail whose customers are often disappointed when they discover that the paper that they planned on using is not available in the quantity that they need due to a tightened global supply chain. “My customers are having to make decisions based on what’s available to them paper-wise,” said Mike Robinson, director of new technology and business development at Summit Direct Mail. “Because SCREEN’s technology allows me to print on a wide variety of substrates, I can offer them alternative solutions that were previously off the table for their direct mail campaigns.”

Summit Direct Mail has experienced an increase in the demand for direct mail since more people have migrated to a work-from-home model. Robinson attributes this to individuals having more time to review what’s in their mailboxes. “When folks had long commutes to and from an office, items in a mailbox had a greater tendency to pile up,” said Robinson. “This led to marketing materials either not being read in a timely fashion or getting tossed right away.” With SCREEN’s technology, Summit Direct Mail has been able to capitalize on this recent shift in people’s daily habits where they are more likely to spend time reviewing their mail on a daily basis over their lunch hours as opposed to setting it aside and going through it one day a week.

The company has also addressed the industry’s labor shortages with the Truepress Jet520 series. With 150 employees across two shifts, Summit Direct Mail only needs one employee per shift to operate a single SCREEN press. The company produces 1.5 to 2 million pieces of mail per day and is fully prepared to produce 5 million pieces per day when paper supplies are expected to return to previous levels.

Founded in 2003, Summit Direct Mail serves the financial, nonprofit, retail and healthcare industries along with government agencies.    

About SCREEN Americas
SCREEN Americas, a SCREEN Graphic Solutions group company established in 1967, is a leading provider of digital inkjet technology serving the commercial, publishing, direct mail, transactional, packaging, folding carton and label industries. In 2021, SCREEN Americas relocated its headquarters to Elk Grove Village, Illinois, with an upgrade that included a 14,000-plus square foot Inkjet Innovation Center.

www.screenamericas.com

North Kingstown, RI — Toray Plastics (America), Inc., announces that it has completed the sale of its Old Baptist Road (OBR) plant building and assets to Trico Specialty Films of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, an affiliate of Arlin Mfg. Co., Inc., of Lowell, Massachusetts. The business was transferred on January 3, 2022. The final terms of the deal are confidential. Trico is continuing to provide service to OBR customers.

“Toray signed a letter of intent with Arlin in September 2021 and we are very pleased to have achieved a quick, smooth transition,” says Christopher Roy, Executive Vice President, Toray Plastics (America), Inc. Roy explains that several successful strategic expansions and investments in state-of-the-art film lines in the company’s Torayfan® OPP film division had significantly reduced Toray’s reliance on its OBR assets. He also notes that every Toray employee at OBR was invited to remain with the company and transition to the Torayfan Division.

Steven Mitchell, one of the owners of Trico, says “I appreciate the excellent cooperation between the two companies, which enabled a successful transfer of the business. We are looking forward to expanding Trico’s capabilities in high quality film manufacturing with this acquisition, while continuing to provide exceptional service to existing and new customers.”

About Toray Plastics (America), Inc.
Toray Plastics (America), Inc., is a leading manufacturer of polyester, polypropylene, and metallized films, and polyolefin, polypropylene, and polyethylene foams. The company is committed to environmental, social, and corporate governance and aims to contribute to society through the creation of new value with innovative ideas, technologies, and products that help address global issues. R&D is focused on the development of materials that are fossil fuel-free, compostable, biodegradable, and/or recyclable. The company’s sustainability initiative, launched in 2004, includes the operating of two solar farms and two cogeneration systems, energy and water conservation, recycling, and zero landfill.

Toray Plastics (America) is a subsidiary of the Toray Group, which believes that materials can change lives and provide real solutions to the challenges the world faces. The Toray Group is the world leader in synthetic fibers and textiles, carbon fibers, plastics, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and high-performance films and has annual sales exceeding US$21 billion.

For more information about Toray Plastics (America)’s products, contact Brenda Ockun, Brand Manager, at brenda.ockun.w9@mail.toray or 315-916-3272. Toray Plastics (America), Inc., headquarters is located at 50 Belver Avenue, North Kingstown, RI 02852-7500; telephone 401-294-4511, fax 401-294-3410. Visit the Toray Plastics (America), Inc., website at www.toraytpa.com.

About Trico Specialty Films
Established in 2011, Trico Specialty Films is a creative and innovative leader in plastic film extrusion. Located in North Kingstown, RI and well known for advancing the performance standards of film products, Trico leadership has over 150 combined years of experience in developing and manufacturing plastic film products. Founded in 1954, Arlin Mfg. Co., Inc., based in Lowell, MA, is a leader in the extrusion and converting of plastic films, specializing in high-strength, narrow-width films and tapes. 

Siegwerk, one of the world’s leading suppliers of printing inks and coatings for packaging solutions, will participate in the InPrint trade fair in March 2022 with its business unit ‘Inkjet’.

The trade fair will take place from 15 to 17 March in Munich and is regarded as a meeting place for specialists in printing technology. It is of great importance to Siegwerk to enter a close exchange with experts from the printing sector regularly. “Siegwerk offers customized ink solutions for almost all printing technologies including industrial inkjet. We are excited to discuss innovative processes in the packaging sector with experts from various fields of our business”, says Matthieu Carni, Director Inkjet Business. “Therefore, we are very happy to be available with an exhibition stand on site for customer and interested parties at the InPrint.

Siegwerk’s portfolio of inkjet solutions consists of various UV and water-based inks as well as different primers and OPVs. These products are suitable for a wide spectrum of substrates. At the InPrint in Munich visitors will get a well-founded overview of these processes and products. Here, every two years, leading print technology provider from around the world meet to showcase their latest developments in digital, inkjet, screen and speciality printing.

“Siegwerk has a long-term strategic focus on inkjet, continuously working on new developments and enhancements with its strategic partners” explains Matthieu Carni, Director Inkjet Business. “By that, we have a profound understanding of the different needs of printers and print equipment manufacturers among others.” The company aims to connect its innovative processes with experts to not only support with its packaging and ink know-how but also to bring partners together to best leverage the core competencies of each one. “For us, the exchange with our partners, customers and those who are interested, is very important. We are constantly developing our products and the ways we are working to even more innovative and sustainable ones. As a result, we are really looking forward to entering these conversations on site at the InPrint.

You will find the exhibition stand of Siegwerk at InPrint at Hall A4, Booth 2150.

For more information about inkjet printing please feel free to have a look at the Siegwerk’s whitepaper regarding that topic. Moreover, there is a podcast available with Matthieu Carni, Director of the Business Unit Inkjet. You will find the podcast here.

About Siegwerk
Siegwerk, a sixth-generation family-owned company, is one of the leading international manufacturers of printing inks and individual solutions for packaging, labels, and catalogs. With more than 180 years of experience, the company has solid expertise in and knowledge of many printing procedures. A global manufacturing and service network ensures customers consistently high-quality products and services. In keeping with the company’s philosophy “Ink, Heart & Soul,” Siegwerk seeks long-term cooperation with its business partners. Siegwerk employs some 5,000 people worldwide in more than 30 country organizations and is headquartered in Siegburg near Cologne. Further information on Siegwerk can be found at www.siegwerk.com