ELTEX laminating system a success for BOSCH

ELTEX, the label specialist from Solingen, Germany, experienced in the fields of adhesive technology and surface protection, has developed the ELTEX 7500 printing, cutting and laminating system. Customers can use this system to print and cut their own labels and laminates.

Wolfgang Leihe, the ELTEX managing director and developer of the sign printing system, explains the system's basis: ‘High-quality and resistant self-adhesive barcode labels or type plates for industrial use are created in the interplay of adhesive, foil and laminate, and the right thermal transfer ribbon for the thermal transfer printer.’

The ELTEX 7500 is already in use in this type of application at ROBERT BOSCH GmbH in Germany. And the Stuttgart-based company is not just any provider of power tools on the customer list. In 2005, BOSCH once again had the world's biggest-selling tool in its range, the Ixo cordless rechargeable screwdriver.

The ELTEX 7500 system has to perform well in Hungary, where the BOSCH Group relocated part of its production some years ago. The production manager in the Miskolc plant, Peter Katona, can put an exact figure on the ELTEX 7500's workload: ‘In one week we print a total of half a million labels.’

The flexibility is one of the reasons why BOSCH Hungary will not consider ready-to-use screen printed labels. In addition, traditional printing technologies cannot be used economically with smaller runs. The reasons for this are the long setting-up times, extensive setting-up material and additional costs for the masters and the printing plates. Peter Katona said: ‘Screen printing is too expensive for our purposes. We would always be dependent on the printers, and we simply couldn't integrate this into our production process. And there are no printers with the same range of expertise in the area of surface protection as ELTEX.’