Bobst increases label production at IBE in Italy

Since its investment in the Bobst MAster DM5, IBESrl has enjoyed significant advantages in a wide range of applications.

The press, which uses both UV inkjet and flexo inkjet technologies, offers priming, printing, laminating, embellishing and converting in one pass. For the Italian printing company, the modular solution has proven to be more than just a label press, while producing high quality printing, it successfully addresses the difficult gap between short and long runs by providing a fast setup, high flexibility and cost effective manufacturing.

“For us, the biggest advantages of the DM5 are, on the one hand, that it is very competitive on the medium courses – and the most in demand – from 2,000 to 8,000 meters. This means it fills a gap that I think was there before, although to be fair we are able to embrace all kinds of draw lengths with this press, ”says CEO Roberto Spreafico. “Second, flexibility. You can produce any type of job the market demands, from the most complex to the simplest label, in a single pass thanks to the versatility of the press and the excellent integration between digital and analog printing technologies. .

Part of the Spreafin group of five companies, which employs over 250 people, IBE was established in 1998 in Merate, in the province of Lecco in northern Italy. The company produces self-adhesive labels, multilayer labels and shrink sleeves for a wide variety of customers, primarily in the food, wine and oil, household and personal care, and industrial sectors, both in Italy and internationally. Production capabilities include offset, flexo and digital printing technologies with constant investments in new products to keep pace with the rapidly changing market.

“The labeling industry has always been used to demands for short time to market, perhaps because the label is one of the last things you put on the package. Speed ​​is therefore the key to success in this market, ”explains Spreafico. “We need rapid execution capabilities to meet these expectations. Sometimes we deliver labels in just two or three days, and this is where digital technology and automation play a huge role.

The IBE team first saw the Bobst Master DM5 in action at Labelexpo Europe in 2019. Impressed by the native resolution of 1200 dpi and the frame rate of up to 100 m / m, the decision was made. quickly taken to select this machine.

“The modularity of the press allowed our company to install a unique configuration corresponding to our specific needs, while the high degree of automation contributed to cost, time and waste savings,” explains Spreafico.

“A major benefit of the DM5 is inline beautification, which adds value without creating a bottleneck in production,” he adds. “We have chosen to include all kinds of finishing and embellishment options to print high quality labels in a single pass so that we can best serve all sectors and industries – for example, verticals of companies. cosmetics and wine labels, which require the highest level of embellishment. ”

The Bobst Master DM5 has been designed with automation in mind, each module being operated by digital technologies. The success of the press is due to the fact that most of the manual steps usually associated with flexo printing have been automated with Bobst technology, such as DigiFlexo for fully digital registration and print pressure adjustment. It also supports recording between the digital unit and flexo stations, both before and after digital printing, which means that the operator can trust the machine to keep recording and work hard. autonomous way. The result is fast setup time, high press uptime and excellent repeatability.

“One of the reasons we chose the DM5, in addition to the digital part, was for the automation of traditional printing,” says Spreafico. “The flexo groups are well integrated and have automatic cue control camera technology on each station. The press is also very easy to use and features on-the-fly job changes, non-stop semi-rotary die change and a waste die system that can create even the most complicated shapes requested by our customers.

He added that the setup times achieved were comparable to those experienced in stand-alone digital printing, despite the multi-process nature of the highly embellished jobs.