ITW Labels, of St. Charles, MO, USA, has just acquired its third MBS butt splicer from Martin Automatic in less than 10 months. A fourth will go into service in early summer, says General Manager Kevin Gold. ITW Labels (formerly Diagraph Label Group) is a converter of custom and blank labels.

“We already had several turret rewinders, so we knew the advantages of automatic roll changing at the end of the press,” says Gold, “and we selected a matrix removal system to eliminate press stoppages at the matrix wind-up. The butt splicer was the remaining piece to give us a completely non-stop printing and diecutting process.”

The first two MBS butt splicers, designed to run pressure sensitive stocks, went into operation on narrow web flexo presses. Even using conservative numbers, Gold had estimated a short payback period. “After two months of running with the splicers, we saw double-digit improvement in throughput on both lines, and the actual payback is proving to be substantially shorter.” The third and most recent MBS butt splicer was installed on a diecutting press, and the fourth will go on another flexo line. Gold expects to retrofit the remainder of his presses with butt splicers later this year.