At Labelexpo Europe 2025, Anna Naruszko from Poligrafika and Opakowanie speaks to GEW’s Managing Director, Robert Rae, and Roman Swoboda of Profex Elektronik, GEW’s distributor in Poland. In this interview, Anna, Robert and Roman cover a range of topics, from the products GEW have on offer for the Polish market, to the service Profex can offer to printers in Poland, and the barriers Polish printers face when switching to UV LED.
Scroll down to read the interview, or watch the video here.
Anna Naruszko (AN): UV technology continues to evolve, and GEW, better known in our country as GEW, sets new standards in this area. At its stand at Labelexpo Europe, I am meeting today with Robert Rae Rae and Roman Swoboda, to talk about how these innovations will impact the label and packaging industry. Good morning Robert.
Robert Rae (RR): Morning.
AN: You are launching several new products here in Barcelona. Which solutions would you recommend Polish printers and converters pay special attention to?
RR: Our main product that we’re talking about at the show is AeroLED2, which is our fully air-cooled LED system for the narrow web printing market. We make it up to 70cm wide. It’s been boosted in power compared to our previous versions, very significantly. So it now runs at 26 watts per square centimetre of output, which is an enormous boost in performance. So for all standard applications, 150m, even up to 200 meters a minute, the curing performance is perfect. So AeroLED2 is really the main product.
And for any customer who has a Rhino system or a Rhino Light system from GEW, those power supplies and those systems are already ready for LED. So since 2015 every single machine we made is ready for LED. So to make an upgrade to AeroLED2, the customer just needs to buy an LED cassette, have a software update over the internet and the job is done. In a matter of hours, your press is running fully LED. So that’s the main product that we’re pushing and launching at the show. And LED is now 50% of our production. So it really shows how the uptake of that technology, it’s now a standard product.
AN: Which features of LED lamps are the most important for users and how does GEW deliver on those expectations?
RR: I mean it completely revolutionises your printing machine. It makes it much more digital because the lamps just switch on and off and they’re the same all of the time. So you know that today when you print the curing performance is what it is. And in a year’s time when you run the same job again the output is the same. There’s no lamps degrading. There’s no reflectors to maintain. There’s no shutters which can go wrong. So it makes maintenance on the machines, the process control, so much simpler. And that’s one of the main reasons that people love LED once they have it.
But why do they get it in the first place? They try and go for it in the first place because they think it’s going to save them significant amounts of energy, which it does. You’re talking anywhere between a 50%-70% reduction in the amount of electrical power you need to run the system. So it’s enormous. And with the increased energy prices that we’ve seen in recent years, especially here in Europe, the requirement to reduce power, reduce consumption, there’s a huge focus on that and so that really is one of the main the main benefits of LED. I could mention a whole host of others. There’s no ozone generation, there’s less heat on the material, it means your registration is better. It really completely is a revolution and, for customers, their customers are wanting to reduce carbon footprints, to reduce energy, reduce the amount of CO2 they’re producing, and LED really delivers on that for a customer, and it’s extremely simple and easy to make up the upgrade. Those are the main benefits of LED and why people are doing it.
AN: Profex Elektronik is an authorised GEW partner, just as we pronounce this company’s name in Poland. What are the most important benefits of it for local printing houses, especially in terms of service and technology availability?
Roman Swoboda (RS): Well, you’ve already answered that question. We have both service and parts available. We strive to ensure that most customers always have a supply of spare parts. After Brexit is became a bit of a nuisance and sometimes, for reasons beyond our control, customs officials hold the shipment for 8 weeks. This prolongs the time. We try to ensure that parts are ordered regularly. Something is running out, but we still have some left, so we’re ordering new ones to make sure we have enough. The same applies to lamps, although sometimes it happens – with no fault of our own – that they are moved somewhere. I simply do not know how it works in Poland, but our parcels and shipments arrive all over Poland. Sometimes it is Warsaw, sometimes it is Gdańsk, sometimes it is Opole – and we cannot help it.
AN: This makes it all the more important to maintain high stock levels in local warehouses.
RS: We have large stocks, always keeping around 2-2.5 thousand lamps and all small components, and it happens, when some of that is lacking, suddenly three customers are looking for that particular part.
AN: LED and hybrid technologies are becoming increasingly popular. What barriers do your customers encounter when switching from arc lamps, and how do you support them in this transformation?
RS: There are no real technical barriers. The barriers are only psychological. Do we need this? Is this what we want? Physically, there are no barriers preventing us from moving forward from one technology to another. In reality, it is entirely up to the client whether he wants to do it. If he wishes and wants to go through with it, every new machine comes with a new LED system as a rule. These are not those LEDs that were available five years ago. This is a different technology, a different quality and a different power from a year ago. Practically compatible, practically comparable, with one small exception. They are extremely economical, as we save between 50% and even 75% of energy. And this is the only barrier that customers sometimes fail to understand. And really, it’s only up to the customers psychologically: can I cope with it? What do I need to change? Nothing needs to be changed. We reprogram it, change the cartridge, and that’s it.
AN: So all that remains is to wish your customers courage for a change. Thank you for talking to us.
Watch the video now
To learn more about AeroLED2, go here.
Find the contact details for Profex Elektronik, here.
With thanks to Poligrafika and Opakowanie magazines for the interview.
