Flexible label printer Coveris has upgraded its Mark Andy 4150 flexo press with an energy-efficient GEW UV curing system.

The company operates from its site in Northumberland, Great Britain and in 2014 replaced its 20-year old UV lamps with a new UV curing system manufactured by GEW (EC) Limited comprising ten E2C lampheads with their associated RHINO electronic power supply.

GEW UV systems are designed specifically for high performance energy-efficient printing presses with applications ranging from narrow web label printing to large format industrial applications working with a wide variety of substrates.
Coveris made the investment to support its effort in optimizing reliability of production output, increasing uptime and reducing energy consumption.

“With the running cost we had for spare parts and energy, we had come to a point where it was no longer viable to run the old system and we took the decision to upgrade to an alternative and GEW’s RHINO came out at the top,” says David Dickinson, group engineer with Coveris. “There was an obvious point in favor of RHINO: it comes with a 5-year parts warranty. Our spend on parts covered the cost of RHINO. On this site, we have gone from spending a substantial amount on spare parts down to very little within the next five years and it’s all predictable.”

GEW’s E2C UV system with RHINO power supply comes with a comprehensive 5-year warranty to avoid any unscheduled downtime and unplanned maintenance costs.

Coveris say installing the GEW UV System means it can provide customers with their proven range of labels with better reliability as far as volume and leadtimes are concerned, which they see as key elements in offering clients the best possible quality and service. “We are no longer losing production due to component failure,” says Roly Banks, site manager at Coveris’ Cramlington UK plant. “The new system has improved our productivity massively. The thing we are most comfortable with now is that in the nine months we have run RHINO here, the system has been 100% reliable. We’ve had no failures.”

An advantage of the new UV system for Coveris is the start-up speed and minimized maintenance time. This results in improved production efficiency and reduced downtime.
“We are now able to shut the lamps down for a break period, which in the past we couldn’t have done,” explains Dickinson. “Now, over a three shift operation, we can save more than an hour and a half per day of running of actual lamp energy.”

“The short burn-in time has been a big saving for us,” adds Banks. “We actually shut lamps down for 5-color, 4-color, 3-color jobs, so the energy and time savings are massive.”

In addition, the lower temperature output of the GEW system results in less heat and CO2 discharge.

Older UV systems require regular cleaning to maintain optimum operating efficiency, which the company says is rarely necessary with GEW’s system. In addition, the system’s energy efficiency means that reduced lamp power can be used to run the press, resulting in prolonged lamp life cycles.

“We were used to changing lamps every 1,000 hours and are now pushing forward to changing every three to 4,000 hours,” confirms Banks.

“We’d recommend GEW,” says Dickinson. “We have worked with GEW on our site for the last twenty years. The improvement in technology is vast and it’s working for us. The investment we have put in RHINO has proven that. On the energy saving alone the cost of the investment cost is recouped within 17 months.”

Coveris has ordered another five systems to harmonize the new technology across its site.