Royal Geostick is a leading manufacturer of self-adhesive labels, flexible packaging and the supply of printing and labelling solutions, based in the outskirts of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. A family business that first started in 1924, Royal Geostick has put social responsibility at the core of its business model with a focus on sustainable materials, low migration ink and ISO certifications. This has also driven their move towards UV LED curing.
In this case study video, Freek van der Knaap, their Technical Manager, discusses their UV LED installation on to an MPS EXL 570 10 colour machine, which includes 9 AeroLED2 cassettes and an E2C in the last station for varnishes. Royal Geostick’s intention is to go fully UV LED in a bid to be as sustainable as possible, although they believe the E2C is currently still needed for special projects.
You can watch the case study video below. Alternatively, scroll down to read the video transcript from Freek van der Knaap.
Freek van der Knaap: “At Geostick we now have LED curing on a number of machines. The great thing about LED curing is that it’s actually more energy efficient. The inks cure better.”
“So, with this we can actually make a quality improvement compared to the traditional UV inks. It makes quite a difference, yes, which you wouldn’t really expect because both are curing and both use lamps.”
“When you look at the old and the new lamp, the old lamp is one long tube, while an LED unit has many small LEDs. But in the end, it consumes roughly 50% less, which lowers the peaks and ultimately gives space to place a new machine.”
“We chose LED curing after we ran a pilot in our plant in Heumen, where we gathered some experience with the inks, which made us think ‘okay, if it works there, we should be able to do it here too’.”
“For the operator there are no large changes, because when they switch to LED the curing becomes much more consistent and it stays that way from the start. We do still need to switch for the UV varnishes and it’s simply a matter of removing the cassette and putting the new cassette in.”
“So, in a way nothing changes, yet everything does. Another large advantage of LED is that it’s much more sustainable. The lamps last longer than the UV lamps. We use less electricity, it gets less warm, and it’s easy to maintain.”
“So, there’s many more advantages besides the energy consumption. Actually, the step was inevitable. Sustainability is in our DNA. We simply want to operate sustainably. Ultimately, we want to be CO2-neutral, so we’re doing many things to achieve that.”
This installation was handled by GEW’s distributor for the region, Sadechaf. To contact Sadechaf, visit their website here.
