Bizerba in Germany have installed a new MPS printing press with GEW nitrogen-inerted UV curing to boost production capacity and overall efficiency. 

Bizerba Labels & Consumables GmbH is a label manufacturing plant and warehouse on the outskirts of Bochum in Germany’s industrial heartland. Their product range includes amongst others innovative marking and labelling solutions with self-adhesive specialty labels, thermal labels, linerless labels, multi-layered labels and functional label systems for a wide range of applications in food processing and the food retail trade.

In 2015 Bizerba installed a new 20-inch wide MPS FA4 press with eight print units including facilities for reverse print and multi-web operation with two different materials. The UV curing system supplied by GEW comprises eight E2C lampheads with RHINO ArcLED electronic power supplies and comes with a nitrogen UV curing chamber for the final varnish application.

Nitrogen curing is essential for the production of packing for use in the food processing industry. The curing process takes place under controlled conditions in a sealed chamber into which the nitrogen is injected to purge the atmospheric oxygen. Inert atmosphere UV will prevent oxygen inhibition of the curing process, improve the degree of curing and increase production speeds, all at the same or lesser power levels. GEW’s inert atmosphere curing solution is built around a chill roller and comes with an embedded precision oxygen level controller to ensure complete process consistency and production efficiency. The nitrogen control panel gives the operator a visual feedback and enables him to accurately control the volume of nitrogen required in the chamber to optimise the curing process. 

By further improving their production capacity and overall efficiency with the GEW E2C system Bizerba were enabled to generate fresh turnover with new and established customers in the food processing industry and retail trade. Bizerba’s decision in favour of the GEW UV system was due to the seamless integration with the MPS system and their wish to invest only in proven future-proof production technology. 

Michael Feuerstack, Director Labels & Consumables Technology at Bizerba, explains: “Our main objectives were to rationalise and optimise our production capacity and to become maintenance-free to the largest degree. The GEW UV system was able to offer us a package of efficiency, reliability and remote system performance surveillance.”

Indeed GEW’s Embedded Service Package allows the manufacturer’s service engineers to remotely monitor system running conditions over the internet allowing them to proactively detect and correct any out-of-tolerance parameters requiring maintenance well before they can develop into a fault. This type of remote preventative maintenance ensures the entire UV system operates at peak performance at all times thus avoiding productivity drops and unplanned machine stoppages.

In addition the new GEW UV system based on the high efficiency E2C unit brings further benefits of faster burn-in and shut-down times with significant savings in electricity consumption. Feuerstack concludes: “The E2C lamphead combined with the new RHINO electronic power supply brings savings to our electricity bill. We appreciate the option to easily upgrade to LED UV curing at a later stage.”