The printing industry has awarded one of its most important awards to Hinterkopf GmbH for its brand new digital printing machine. The Digital Printer D240 is the recipient of the prestigious InterTech Technology Award 2014 from the world's leading graphic arts industry association – the Printing Industries of America (PIA). 

This is the first InterTech Technology Award for Hinterkopf GmbH, reflecting the company's leadership in the advancement of manufacturing of cans, bottles, tubes and other cylindrical containers. With its innovative engineering concept, the Digital Printer D240 has already received a great interest from leading manufacturers in the field. The D240 is the first industrial, fully digital machine for the decoration of consumer market packaging such as aerosol cans, aluminum beverage bottles, plastic cartridges and plastic or aluminum collapsible tubes. It has successfully passed beta testing and is now entering series production.

Innovation Drives Productivity

The technical capabilities of the Digital Printer D240 are already impressive. The D240 enables digital printing of highest quality, photo-realistic pictures as well as razor sharp text and graphics. Print resolution is an impressive 1200 dpi, which sets the D240 apart from any other available solution. The capability to print products in true 360 degrees with no overlap opens up entirely new possibilities for packaging design. Printing is performed at up to 240 parts/minute, providing the capacity to run any size order. One of the most impressive features of the D240, however, is the ability to change over from job to job in seconds. The panel of judges, which is a group of independent technology decision makers in the industry, commented that in this very competitive industry of consumer packaging the D240 offered a whole new product portfolio and significant product differentiation. Dr. Mark Bohan, VP of Printing Industries of America summarizes: "The judges were extremely impressed with the quality, the productivity and the possibilities for new product design. This is what innovation and the InterTech Award are about: technical advancements that provide real benefits for the industry and open up new markets." 

The Value Proposition

Hinterkopf GmbH, founded in Eislingen/Germany in 1960 with the goal to advance the tube making industry. Manual handling of product was replaced by mechanics and pneumatics. Later, machines for printing, brushing, trimming and shaping of containers were added to the portfolio. All this in an effort to advance the industry through innovation. In recent years, the consumer packaging industry is looking for more productive options for the manufacture of short runs and segmented market packaging. Special editions and samples are another market demand. By application of its experience in material handling, container creation and shaping as well as decoration, Hinterkopf GmbH came up with an off the shelf solution that allows manufacturers to produce containers with the highest possible print quality, and at the same time virtually eliminating time for job changeover. The technical capabilities and economics are equally impressive.

The Digital Printer D240 combines state of the art digital printing quality, unparalleled possibilities in container design, and impressive changeover features into one powerful package.