Digilinck invests in HP – TRESU digital printing and coating line for single-pass folding carton production
An exclusively digital printing business, Digilinck has expanded rapidly since it was established in 2011. Now with a workforce of 25, the company supplies luxury packaging and self-adhesive labels to retail goods and pharmaceutical markets in Northern Europe.
Digilinck attributes its fast growth to the quality and user-friendliness of its two existing HP Indigo WS6600 roll-to-roll presses, which enabled the company to supply short-run orders, responsively, and provide a host of added value services like variable data and personalized products. Their success in meeting their client base’s needs with fast turnarounds attracted significant new business, and in 2014, the company supplied in excess of 12000 orders.
Digilinck’s owner and founder, Vincent Oosterlinck, explains: “The crucial factor in our success at Digilinck has been our ability to offer fast lead times, and exploit the full potential of the digital process. However, the growth we experienced made it challenging to meet commitments, even when both machines were running three shifts a day. We needed to invest in a new press urgently.”
The company installed a seven-colour HP Indigo 30000 Digital Printer, integrated with a TRESU iCoat 30000 coater. Together the two machines provide a seamless single-pass printing and coating line for folding cartons, with minimal logistics or material waste.
TRESU iCoat 30000 is a flexo coating unit that can apply water-based or UV-varnishes directly after the digital printing stage, both to provide protection to the underlying graphics and to enhance aesthetic appeal.
Digilinck’s printing and coating line from HP Indigo and TRESU runs at 3450 B2-size sheets per hour, with a maximum of 4600 sheets per hour. This enables the company to print jobs in excess of 30,000 units in approximately two hours. However, both machines are capable of up to 5000 sheets / hour on board substrates of maximum format 750mm x 550mm. The coater’s quick-change sleeve technology and fast chamber cleaning cycles make it possible to exchange jobs and varnish sets in minutes.
Vincent Oosterlinck comments: “The HP Indigo 30000 together with the TRESU iCoat 30000, was the ideal complement to our WS6600 Digital Press machines. It delivers the identical quality cost-efficiently, yet with twice the productivity. This gives us the ability to grow and maintain the flexibility on which our competitive edge depends.”