tesa AG – the manufacturer of self-adhesive products and solutions for industry, business and consumers – has its head office for Northern Europe in Birkerød, near Copenhagen. Local subsidiary tesa A/S has a modern sales centre there for its extensive product range as well as tesa Labels, its own label production line. The adhesive labels produced there are primarily supplied to the pharmaceutical industry. In December 2007, tesa Labels installed a new eight-colour UV-flexo printing press from Nilpeter. Gerhard Schmidt, tesa’s Nordic Logistics Manager and Niels Bjerregaard, the Production Manager for tesa Labels in Birkerød, talk about their initial experience with the press in practice and explain their reasons for choosing Nilpeter.
tesa AG sells more than 6000 products to more than 100 countries. The Northern Europe region consisting of Scandinavia, the Baltics and the UK has its head office in Birkerød, near Copenhagen in Denmark. There, 90 staff look after an extensive warehouse for industrial and consumer goods products.
Label production primarily for the pharmaceutical industry
Alongside the warehouse, tesa has had its own production facility for self-adhesive labels for nearly 30 years. 28 staff work here, and there are three shifts, five days a week on five printing presses. The proportion of printing onto adhesive foils such as Polyethylene and Polypropylene is increasing. Just the number of labels made of PE is already higher than for paper labels. About twenty years ago, the tesa Labels department started to focus on the pharmaceutical industry and has seen constant growth since. About 80% of print work comes from the industry. As a result, production and workflow are aligned to the special needs inherent for pharmaceutical companies, such as documentation and quality control of labelling.
By investing in new printing technology, the company has sought to grow the already successful business area. Up until then, the predominant printing method was letterpress. As some manufacturers of narrow-web machines have ceased to produce letterpress machines, Gerhard Schmidt did not want to make an investment in this technology again. Instead, tesa decided to go for UV-flexo printing and has thus chosen “progress”, as Gerhard Schmidt explains. The decision was to go for an FA-Line from Nilpeter, which has a modular construction and servo technology, and can therefore replace two older letterpress machines in stages. The FA-4 model is equipped with eight print stations and two dies, has a web width of 420 mm and a turnbar which permits in-line reverse side 4/4 printing. The machine also has a lamination unit, with which Delam-Relam applications are possible.
Steady and constant colour reproduction is an important quality criterion
At the begining of the project to install a new printing press in the Spring 2007, digital printing was also under consideration as an alternative to the flexo printing. Niels Bjerregaard explains that digital printing was not chosen because of its poorer ability to reproduce special colours, something that is crucial in the pharmaceutical industry. To get clearly defined colour tones, the special inks have to be mixed specially. This leads to frequent changes of ink, so that the actual advantages of digital printing are outweighed.
As far as print quality is concerned, the FA-4 left a very good impression during pre-installation testing. For Niels Bjerregaard, an important aspect for judging quality was the colour consistency, even with repeat jobs. So the possibility of saving all production parameters was a big advantage for him, because once a colour tone was achieved, it could be reproduced again precisely even weeks later. Other quality criteria were precision and reproduction of fine elements. The latter is particularly important in the pharmaceutical industry because of the large amount of text printed on labels. Because more and more information has to be printed on medicine labels, smaller and smaller font sizes have to be used. Yet even small letters and fonts have to be printed reliably.
Sleeve Technology reduces idle times
As Gerhard Schmidt says, what was seen during testing of the new machine turned out to be no different in everyday use. The print results were stable and constant and a significant improvement over letterpress. For the pharmaceutical industry, tesa often prints product series with a uniform format but in different colour combinations. If special colour tones are needed, the relevant inks are either mixed in-house or bought in as special lots.
For these product series with different colour versions, the Nilpeter Easy Load sleeve technology has shown itself to be very advantageous. It minimises changeover times because of shorter load times. The clichés and the screen cylinders can be changed quickly and easily with help from the gearless anilox sleeve technology. This gives tesa the opportunity to use the FA-4 for very small print runs.
Wider and faster
The installation of the new flex printing press has led to a noticeable increase in production capacity, despite it being a replacement for two older machines. The increase in production is due on the one hand to the significantly larger web width of 420 mm. This allows a larger number of items to be accommodated side-by-side on the belt. In addition, the FA-4 has a faster print speed. Niels Bjerregaard says that the two older machines managed between 30 and 40 m/min, whereas the new FA-4 can go up to 175 m/min.. Even though some pharmaceutical labels do not allow the full potential to be used, the throughput is still several times faster than with the old machines.
The increase in overall capacity gives tesa more flexibility of production control. The company is thus in a position to offer very short delivery times when customers for example need to react very quickly to unexpected developments. This can help with customer retention and avoids work being sent to countries with low labour costs. Customer service opportunities stretch even further. The company monitors stock levels for selected standard products for one of its customers, ensuring that new labels are produced in time to meet their requirements. As well as being very convenient for the customer, it means that production planning for tesa labels can be optimised all the more.
Powerful technology used efficiently
Nowadays, modern printing presses use extremely valuable technology that has to be used as efficiently as possible, says Gerhard Schmidt. At the end of the day, you can only earn money from what you actually print. This needs to be supported by internal processes that take as much preliminary work away from the print operators as possible. Tasks such as mixing the inks are undertaken by dedicated staff. The objective is that only fully pre-prepared print jobs are handed over to an operator to run.
In order to increase the productivity of the new machine, tesa has also invested in a specially-developed work station system into which is integrated a unit for cliché montage. This is made by Danish company Custmo ApS of Maarslet which provides functional installations for label printing works. The modular system allows organised work around the print production line as well as storage of the required machine parts and tools according to industry practice. In this way, cylinders, sleeves, rollers and plates are always within reach, so that protracted searching is avoided. In addition, proper storage of the components can prevent them from being damaged. The individual storage modules can be adapted to the requirements of the individual machine types. They consist mostly of drawers, which ensure better organisation of items as well as faster access to the different machine components and tools. This gives smooth implementation of changes and reduces changeover time. This all means that the system exactly meets tesa’s requirements for as efficient work processes as possible.
The system also looks clean and organised next to the printing press. This makes things easy for staff and also gives a good impression to clients and visitors to the print works. Many come for audits and trial runs and want to visit the print room – something that pharmaceutical clients often insist on.
Photo captions:
Photo 1: With the installation of Nilpeter’s FA-4, Gerhard Schmidt (right), Nordic Logistics Manager at tesa A/S, and Niels Bjerregaard, Production Manager of tesa Labels in Birkerød have chosen to go for UV-flexoprint.
Photo 2: The introduction of the Nilpeter FA-4 has given tesa Labels increased flexibility in label production.
Photo 3: Easy Load Sleeve Technology helps reduce idle time.
Photo 4: The Print Management Centre supports the printing press with tasks such as saving process and production parameters.
Photo 5: Above all, it is colour consistency that is the most significant quality criterion for tesa’s choice of Nilpeter’s FA-Line in Birkerød
