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Customer requirements speed up technical progress

You could say that self-adhesive labels are similar to ballet dancers… you can’t see the extent of effort behind their performance. In both cases there is huge investment behind the scenes to achieve the necessary technique. RAKO Group, Germany, invested in a printing press from Nilpeter with a total of 13 printing units – three of these are gravure units - in 2010 to convert the sophisticated design ideas of the brand owners. This FA-4 is the sixth of this model in RAKO Group. During a visit to the headquarters of the company in Witzhave, just outside Hamburg, the company founder Mr. Ralph Koopmann explains the reasons for this investment.

Self adhesive labels, flexible packaging and safety products are the key areas in which the RAKO Group operates. The various business segments have evolved successfully for years, says Ralph Koopmann who founded the RAKO in Witzhave, Germany in 1969. The group now consists of 25 individual companies with a total of 1400 employees. The largest product range is the adhesive labels, but also flexible packaging, sleeves as well as holograms for product security and RFID-Inlays and systems are supplied by RAKO. The company LeoMat GmbH builds inspection machines, overprinters and machines for the production of booklet labels.

Ralph Koopmann says that in 2010 the group turnover has grown strongly, thus he expects to come close to a turnover of €200 million. Due to the good order situation, the production is working to full capacity partly in four shifts. In order for the manufacturing capacity to keep pace with this development, the company invested heavily throughout the year.

13 colour press with integrated gravure

Among the acquisitions of six Nilpeter presses is the new FA-4, which includes three solvent-gravure heads. The wide range of print methods mastered by RAKO have thereby been expanded from flexo and UV-flexo, letterpress, screen and offset printing as well as digital offset printing to now also including gravure. In order to avoid any surprises when entering this field, the company prepared for a year in advance to fully understand the technical requirements, so that when the machine was installed in 2010 all questions regarding Repro, tooling, applicable range of inks, explosion proofing etc had already been addressed.

The decision to invest in a printing press with a total of 13 printing units was triggered by customer request for variable configuration and high quality value added possibilities, explains Rainer Bufe, Technical Manager at RAKO-Etiketten. Mostly it is the cosmetics industry that time and again raises the standard. In this aspect a well equipped machine offers the great advantage of being able to fulfil unusual customer requests, for instance if sufficient print units are available, the screen range and full tone of a colour can be separated and printed in different print units. If this is considered in the planning stage and when choosing anilox rollers, it allows for a faster change over, more reliable production and printing results of a higher quality.

High quality refinements in gravure

In Witzhave they find it beneficial to have the flexibility of three integrated gravure printing units in the FA-4. Rainer Bufe stated that “In addition to the base white or an opaque spot colour then silver/metallics are possible alternatives from foil stamping. Our expectations of the press have been met in all aspects. The gravure printing opens new, high quality possibilities which we, of course, can use not only in cosmetics but also in other market segments such as beverage labels. Many international suppliers of spirit beverages, sparkling wine and beer discovered the No-Label-Look as a marketing tool”.

Rako_red_4

Customers of the RAKO Group include well known brand owners of mineral oil, foods, non-foods, cosmetics products and media. Apart from delivery of labels, many of these companies also expect a comprehensive service. RAKO is now much more than just a self-adhesive label supplier – and consider themselves a partner to the customer for label solutions. Such a partnership with customers goes so far that graphic designers from RAKO by now work with the brand owners on site. “The customers want for instance, more studies in our laboratory to investigate the compatibility of the product with the labels”, says Ralph Koopmann. This close co-operation shortens the development time and results in labels customised for that particular printing technique. Therefore the possibilities for the label designer are so much larger.

Other solutions

An essential feature for the RAKO Group is the ever expanding range of solutions they can offer. The label print shop in Witzhave entered into digital printing at an early stage and they now have nine printing presses producing in respective divisions. Ralph Koopmann is convinced that in future the digital printing gradually take market share from conventional printing. This development could accelerate drastically if the production speed could rise from todays 32m/min to 50m/min or more and if the web width of 500mm could be handled. The digital printing systems, with a very short set up time and low waste, are the right solutions for small order sizes and increased demand for short delivery times.

Brand security labelling is another successful main pillar of the RAKO Group. It ranges from original labelling of luxury goods to spare parts for the automobile industry and even protection against falsification of passports. The recipe for success also lies in the business philosophy of offering not only single products, but complete solutions. For example, RAKO manufactures all the components for security of RFID labels in all common solutions, through to complete systems for anti-theft for many department stores.

According to Ralph Koopmann, RAKO is the number one provider of starting numbers for recording runing times in connection with running events. They are numbered consecutively in digital printing and the starting numbers contain a detachable control chip for measuring the run time, which is fixed to the shoelace. In this context the company uses a technical innovation of registering the run time by means of sensors integrated in a portable mat which is crossed by the runners. In that way the high technical costs for installation of appropriate registration equipment on the running tracks would not be required.

Lamination and die-cutting in-line in one process unit

In the search for new successes Ralph Koopmann often thinks very un-conventional. The most recent example is found in the engineering company LeoMat, owned by the RAKO Group, experimenting with systems, which can coat, laminate and die-cut pre-printed substrates. Ralph Koopmann expects that this relocation of production steps on one hand will increase the production output in the printing area and on the other hand result in cost savings due to less set-up waste and lower material costs.

The target is to strengthen the international business of the company group. The existing basis with sites in Germany, France, China and South Africa must be expanded by new additional branches, mainly in the countries Russia, India and Brazil.

Source: www.nilpeter.com

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