RAKO-Group counts as one of the largest manufacturers of self-adhesive labels in Europe. The group consists of 18 companies operating in domains as diverse as labels, flexible packing, safety technologies (RFID and holograms) and software with sites in Germany, France, South Africa and China.
RAKO-Group’s head office in Witzhave near Hamburg, Germany, is also the production site of RAKO ETIKETTEN GmbH & Co. KG, founded in 1989. Here RAKO prints self-adhesive labels of all kinds in several different printing technologies: flexo print, screenprint and gravure print as well as combination printing processes.
Early in 2015 RAKO ETIKETTEN invested in two new Gallus ECS 340 flexo printing presses. The two machines are configured identically and are fitted with twelve flexoprint stations with GEW UV curing. Each UV station comprises a GD3 UV lamphead and the associated GEW RHINO electronic power supply.
To justify the investment, during the planning process efficiency and production capacity were the key considerations for RAKO. Arne Bir, production manager at RAKO ETIKETTEN explains: “For us GEW UV systems have been the industry standard for many years. By installing the GEW UV systems and the RHINO power supply RAKO is in a position to increase production capacity and at the same time reduce production costs.“
“At RAKO performance and reliability are essential requirements for competitive high-quality label manufacturing. GEW were able to offer us a complete package of efficiency, reliability and remote system performance checks.”
Indeed GEW’s Embedded Service Package allows the manufacturer’s service engineers to remotely analyse performance data that enable them to proactively detect any out-of-tolerance parameters requiring maintenance and advise corrective action well before a fault could develop. This type of remote preventative maintenance ensures the entire UV system operates at peak performance at all times thus avoiding unplanned machine stoppages and wasted resources.
The GEW UV system with the air-cooled high efficiency GD3 UV units brings additional benefits of unprecedented fast burn-in and shut-down times with considerable savings in electricity consumption. Arne Bir confirms: “Our calculations indicate that the GD3 UV lampheads together with the RHINO power supply will reduce our electricity bill by 30%. These are considerable savings, not taking into account savings from faster, more stable production with no downtime.”
Find out more about GEW’s mercury arc UV lamps in our products section.