Speedmaster SX 52-5+L LE UV. Newly acquired orders, expanded range of materials and products, much higher throughput, and improved margins thanks to LE UV technology.
“When our Speedmaster SX 52-5+L LE UV went into operation in October 2013 we were one of the first users of this new UV curing process,” explains Marco Jurt, Head of Printing/CtP at Swiss print shop Ebikon. “The SX 52 with LE UV was more than a replacement for the previous press. It enabled us to explore an entirely new business model. Our customers love the new products, and they are prepared to pay a premium for the added value they receive,” Jurt continues. The company now also uses the Speedmaster SX 52 to produce non-absorbent materials in-house, with all the advantages this brings. Coating applications achieve gloss levels that were previously reserved for screen printing or UV offline applications, and that commercial sheetfed offset printers could only dream of.
For 61 years, Druckerei Ebikon’s workforce of 25 has been producing commercial print products of all kinds in the Swiss town from which it takes its name. The company covers every stage of production for print products from data transfer and processing, design, printing and coating, personalization in digital printing and postpress, all the way to packaging and shipping.
However, when it comes to production using LE UV it must be noted that the material costs for consumables are higher than conventional inks and coatings. “The newly acquired orders, expanded range of materials and products, much higher throughput, and improved margins more than make up for the additional costs,” says Jurt. “Since the ink is fully cured when the substrate arrives at the machine’s delivery there is no need to wait for it to dry. We now print ten orders per shift, as opposed to the five or six we achieved on the previous machine,” says Jurt, remarking that the curing process would not be as widely accepted as it is in Switzerland – where print shops are under incredible price pressure – if it were not cost-effective. In actual fact, printing companies that take on the process and exploit its potential discover whole new opportunities.
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