09.07.15
Today’s printers have virtually limitless options. Retrofit options can range from simple in-house upgrades to improve reliability or uptime, to major overhauls to improve speed, quality, or add new functionality. Benefits also run the full gamut from ease of operation, cost savings, and productivity improvements, to additional revenue and new customers. And, of course, printers always can evaluate cost/benefit ratios of a retrofit against the option of acquiring new equipment.
Retrofits, however, add a dimension of complexity that must be factored in and managed as a major part of the implementation. This is because retrofits are most often done to equipment that is currently in operation, supporting customers directly or indirectly. This requires careful planning, not only from the project team, but throughout most of the manufacturing operations and support functions.
Let’s take a look at an upgrade project successfully implemented by Great Lakes Label, a high-end printer located in Comstock Park, MI, USA. What makes this retrofit project somewhat unique is that it was performed on two top-of-the-line printing presses that the company had been running for less than two years.
Innovation is a mission
Great Lakes Label operates out of one 26,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in what is a suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan. With 42 employees, the company operates seven days a week and runs five printing presses (two Webtrons, a Mark Andy 4120, and two Mark Andy Performance Series presses, a P5 and a P7). Its finishing operation consists primarily of five inspection-rewinders (Rotoflex and Arpeco, both of which are Mark Andy brands) and one CTC International turret-rewinder. The company provides complete turnkey services including an in-house art department, R&D, and platemaking that includes high-definition (HD) flexo. In addition, Great Lakes Label also distributes label application equipment, which accounts for close to 20% of its business.
Great Lakes Label takes great pride in innovating solutions in response to tough industry challenges. “We’re an innovative company that offers a lot of the really hi-tech bells and whistles with our state-of-the-art equipment and talent,” says Tony Cook, CEO and founder. “We want to be first-to-market with as many innovations as possible.”
The largest portion of its product portfolio is currently pressure sensitive labels and, Cook says, “We are growing in flexible packaging and we do a decent amount of tags for the textile industry.” Great Lakes Label serves a wide range of markets. About 20% to 25% is in prime label for food packaging. “We do a lot of industrial labels as well as appliance and office furniture labeling; and then we have a horticultural labeling segment,” he explains.
Other markets include beer, wine and spirits; household cleaners; and health and beauty. “A lot of our suppliers are shocked that we are growing in all these markets. My feeling is that the way presses are made today, it opens up the gamut to go into many different markets,” says Cook.
Great Lakes Label took a significant step in adding “bells and whistles” with the addition of a Mark Andy 13-inch Performance Series P5 press in early 2013, followed by a 17-inch Performance Series P7 press about a year later. Cook had known for some time that the company needed to upgrade its press technology because of the opportunity for higher speeds and better quality. In addition, he saw growth opportunities in high-end printing that required the high-technology press capabilities. “Many of our customers were moving some of their products to the short-run flexible packaging market, and we wanted to be able to do both pressure sensitive labels and flexible packaging,” recalls Cook. “With the servo-driven technologies on the front end and back end we are able to run various materials, save the tension settings, and then recall them for later runs on the press. You can’t do that without a lot of transition work on the older presses.”
The company had been involved in Lean Manufacturing efforts for some time and had reorganized its facility based on a future-state Lean operating map, leaving room for the new presses. The 13-inch P5 was installed as a single unwind, 8-color press, with three of the stations having both UV and conventional drying capability. The 17-inch P7, installed about one year later, also was a single unwind, 8-color press with a cold foil unit. Two of its print stations had both UV and conventional drying.
The paint’s dry, time for a retrofit
What Cook quickly discovered was that the capabilities provided by the new presses opened up the “door of opportunity” and really was just the tip of the iceberg. “Our customers started asking if we could do more special coatings and more colors, especially customers in the health & beauty and beer, wine and spirits markets,” says Cook. “We wanted additional stations to be able to provide multiple coatings. Some of them are two- or three-part coatings that you put on top of an already 6- or 8-color job and then you want varnish at the end.” In addition, Cook saw good growth opportunity in the market for 3-panel hinged (extended content) labels and multiple layers for instant redeemable coupons.
“We were doing a little bit of the 3-panel hinge work on the 4120 press, but it was inefficient,” recalls Cook. When the P5 became available, it provided some improvements, with the company installing a small retrofit to add a second unwind and a cold foil unit about a year after it was up and running. “We started producing some products by running them through the P5 press twice, and when we added the additional unwind we were able to do it in higher volume. We could only do basic stuff prior to the initial retrofits. We were very limited.”
Cook understood clearly that the company’s mission was to be first-to-market with innovative solutions for its customers. So once he knew what was needed to achieve this, it was full speed ahead. It was time to provide even more “bells and whistles” so that Great Lakes Label could provide its customers what they were asking for.
Major additions
Not long after the P7 press was in operation in early 2014, Great Lakes Label decided to move forward with significant upgrades to both Performance Series presses. It was going to be an aggressive, yet thorough process, punctuated by good planning from start to finish.
The process started with an initial session with John Baer of Mark Andy’s retrofit sales team to review what Great Lakes Label wanted to accomplish. Follow-up meetings with engineering resulted in configuration options that would achieve the desired objectives. “We sat with our press operators, our production managers and sales department, and talked about all the possibilities of each configuration and what would make the most sense for what we wanted to do,” says Cook. “Once we nailed it down, we created a project time line.”
The resulting plan was a customized expansion of each of the Performance Series presses. The P5 retrofit included three new print stations (each with UV and conventional drying); three UV drying upgrades to existing print stations; two rotary screen units (rail-mounted, giving the flexibility to switch the units to the P7 press if required); a hot-stamp embossing unit on the die station; and a corona treating system. The resulting P5 configuration has 11 print stations, two rotary screen units, and the hot-stamp unit, giving it the capability to print up to 14 colors.
The P7 retrofit included an additional print station (with UV and conventional drying); five additional UV drying systems; a corona treating system; a constant-tension unwind system; and a constant-tension lamination system. When integrating the two rail-mounted rotary screen units from the P5, this press can deliver up to 11 colors.
This was a lot of work, admits Cook, but “we wanted to be unique and to have the ability to do any label that came in front of us,” he says. “We wanted to be able to add some of the new dynamic special effects that others can’t do.”
Cook estimates that the total project from the initial meetings through installation took five months. This included a 10-week lead time for equipment delivery once the final purchase order was signed off. A good amount of preliminary work was done prior to the one week of intense installation activity.
“We coordinated the production and retrofit schedules so we could keep one press running while we were installing all the electrical, plumbing, and everything else for the second press,” says Cook. “Through the whole period we had one press running while the other one was down for the retrofit. So there was a lot of coordination with our production team, and the project team did a lot of work in a short amount of time.”
Everything from start to finish was coordinated with Mark Andy. “Both our team and Mark Andy’s were very methodical and just did a great job,” he continues. “It was fantastic; it was real teamwork – like we were one company.”
The retrofits were completed in November of last year and the start up was very smooth. “Everything went together better than we thought,” says Cook. “I don’t recall any notable problems during start up. If there were any hiccups, I’ve already forgotten about them. Mark Andy brought in some of their people who had experience with the new equipment and spent a few extra days training our operators. That was really helpful.”
With the ability to produce high-end, multi-layered labels in one pass on either of the two Performance Series presses, the finishing operation provides standard inspection and rewinding. Great Lakes Label uses its five Rotoflex and Arpeco inspection-rewind machines, along with its turret-rewinder from CTC International. The product typically come off the press in 5,000 or 10,000 foot rolls, which are then inspected to splice out any defective product and rewound in the configurations needed by its customers.
Benefits go to the bottom line
Great Lakes Label has been running its operation full bore since the completion of the retrofit work at the end of last year. It is sometimes difficult to get a direct measure on the return (ROI) for retrofit projects, but Cook knows it has resulted in increased revenue. “In the months since the retrofit work was completed, we have experienced about a 20% growth in the company, and I would say half of that is attributed to the retrofit,” he reports. “It has clearly helped us get the new business we were going after.”
Many of its customers don’t know that some of the features and capabilities that Great Lakes Label now offers exist, so an important part of its current work is to educate its clients on what the new technologies can provide. This involves working through customers’ purchasing departments or, even better, starting directly with their marketing people. “Once we get with the marketing people, we educate them on what we can do and collaborate with them on what they would like to try,” says Cook.
One particularly good growth area is in the expanding use of the 3-panel hinge label. It is being used primarily by Great Lakes Label’s customers in food, horticultural and household cleaners. But others are showing keen interest. “The more people we show the multi-colored layers, with new coatings on the top layer, the more interest we are seeing in it,” notes Cook.
Compliance labeling is one of the main drivers for this growth. Government regulations are requiring more and more information in many large market segments. “We are adding more content onto labels all the time,” says Cook. “Every segment has its reasons for adding more content. For example, some companies in the food segment are already getting ready for nutritional panel information changes that are coming down the pipe.” And because labels are so important to grabbing consumers’ attention and selling the product, brand managers are not willing to give up any real estate on the prime label.
Extended content labels are proving to be useful solutions to this dilemma, with the ability to put much of the information on the inside. For now, Cook believes the 3-panel hinge configuration has plenty of growth potential. It is just one of the reasons why Great Lakes Label made the commitment to retrofit its two newest presses.
Most family-owned print shops have humble beginnings. First Tape & Label started in Texarkana, AR, USA in 1980 with one old press and David Haak, proprietor and soul pressman.
One afternoon David’s wife Debbie, a school teacher, requested that he print some little happy face stickers for her to use with her students. David agreed to print a few on some scrap material. A few days later Mrs. Haak reported that the stickers were a big hit and she asked David to print more – a lot more. David said he really didn’t really want to do it but Mrs. Haak continued to negotiate. She offered to take care of post print production and would handle selling them. They struck a deal, David printed the stickers and Mrs. Haak made up 300 finished rolls to sell.
Three days later, David came home and found a handsome new recliner in their living room. “Where did this come from?” David asked. His wife replied, “I bought it. I sold every one of those little stickers.” David noted that they were pretty broke at that time and now he had a brand new recliner, paid for by little happy face stickers. He thought to himself, “You know what? There might be something to this sticker business.”
First Tape & Label created teacher packages of stickers which became quite popular. These happy little stickers were the stepping stones to greater things. Today, the company specializes in sophisticated industrial labels for tires, automotive parts and food packaging.
New tire labels are an important part of First Tape’s business. David bought his first printing press from a company that was printing labels for a local tire manufacturer. Unfortunately that printer was not delivering what the tire company wanted to buy. David called on the tire company persistently and was finally awarded a one-time job as a test. It was the beginning of a high-value relationship which has continued to grow year after year. David says, “You win business by delivering exceptional service.” He recalls making deliveries personally at all times of the day or night. When his customer asked if he ever slept, he responded, “Not when you really want something.”
Great service means you’re adding real value to the relationship. David notes, “You deliver the best quality you can every time and then work to add more value to the product and relationship. You look for opportunities to serve beyond a good printing job and that’s where you build strong relationships.” First Tape & Label often reevaluates their processes and materials in search of additional cost reductions for the customer without compromising product quality or functionality. This personalized service has led to the development of specialized substrates and adhesives that resolve specific customer application issues and needs.
While top quality printing and service is very important, it’s not a game-changer until you deliver competitive pricing. Most of First Tape’s business consists of short runs. Many of these short runs are on the same stock and utilize the same dies. First Tape wanted to try automatic roll change and rewinds, hoping they would further reduce their per impression costs. After much research, the company decided upon Martin Automatic equipment, mainly because of its reputation in the industry. Because of First Tape’s short-run environment, many of the pressmen didn’t think it would work but David decided to give it a try anyway.
First Tape & Label invested in a new digital print engine and retrofitted it on an older Aquaflex press to create a very affordable digital press. They then added a new Martin MBSC splicer and a Martin STR rewind to deliver non-stop productivity. First Tape now has a serious production line that David says blows away the alternatives. Within a very short time frame, the one press combination was producing the work of five flexo presses put together. The pressmen no longer doubt the value of automatic roll change, and they call their new press combo “The Beast.”
Roll change automation doesn’t always make sense for short run printing but David Haak did his research and found a way to make it work. “If you’re printing digital and running the same thing every day on the same substrate, even with short-runs, it’s just amazing how much more production you get at the end of the day with automatic roll change,” he says.
The experiment was a success and First Tape now has a second retrofitted digital press connected to a second Martin automatic splicer and rewind. The company also added two additional sets of Martins to support the other flexo presses. Concludes David Haak, “When I look back at how we started and compare that to the company we have today, I have to say that we’ve been very blessed. We have exceptional people who do their jobs very well. And we have exceptional technologies that will continue to deliver high-value for years to come. I think those little happy face stickers were trying to tell me something.”