St. Luc Labels & Packaging, a leading Belgian manufacturer of labels with manufacturing plants across the Benelux region and Northern France, has announced purchasing two of Grafotronic’s innovative DCL2 550 machines. The purchase marks a significant milestone for Grafotronic’s Benelux subsidiary which opened for business earlier this summer.
The newly ordered Grafotronic machines will be installed in St. Luc’s ‘Altrif Labels’ plant in Roosendaal, the Netherlands. Both machines are equipped with highly automated features including ‘the One’ – the fastest single anvil semi-rotary die in the industry which is capable of reaching a 150 m/minute, the automatic knife positioning SCI-FI Knives slitting system, MLD (Missing Label Detection system) and semi-auto turret with AUTOCUT, automatic cut at end of roll. A minimal waste and reduce set-up times configuration enabling high productivity and efficiency for St. Luc’s ‘Altrif Labels’ plant in Roosendaal.
Additionally, after vising Grafotronic booth at LABELEXPO , St. Luc has decided to further invest in one of the machines on display at the event – the CF2 finishing line, featuring the Grafotronic IQ automation suite. The unique Grafotronic IQ automation feature enables the Grafotronic machine to independently perform job changes and handles all job settings automatically. Basically, it acts as a virtual operator. Grafotronic IQ works with a set of cameras that monitor the web and automatically adjust what’s needed.
Managing director Niko Dhondt concludes: “with more and more digital stand-alone printing machines, we needed to expand our capacity in off-line finishing. Digital labels and flexibles are a fast-growing market. Grafotronic offers new technologies and visions for increasing speed and efficiency in the finishing process of digital printed labels. Together with my team we decided to invest in this new technology. The IQ reduces start-up time dramatically. So, we hope the new collaboration with Grafotronic will be a big success.”
