48-lamp UV LED commitment gives Auraprint leading edge

GEW’s latest case study focuses on Auraprint Oy, a label printer based in Turku, Finland.

Auraprint has a rich history, having been formed in 1886 as a newspaper printer. Over 135 years later, the company is still going strong and is owned by the fourth generation of the same family who founded the business. Auraprint has 95 employees and a turnover of around 18 million EUR, and the company continues to stay ahead of the competition by investing in new technology yearly.

This, in part, explains Auraprint’s evolution over the past century. It has evolved away from newspapers and towards continuous form, sheetfed and label printing. Labeling became a more prominent focus when the company bought its first flexo press in the 1980s. While flexo printing of labels and sleeves is now the company’s primary business, it still uses offset printing processes for wet glue labels for the forestry industry.

Auraprint is continuously evolving, as demonstrated by its recent investment in GEW UV LED systems. This was driven by a desire to be a greener organization, and its investment in UV LED did not stop at curing systems—it also changed its entire factory lighting to LED, which has led to savings of nearly 4,000 EUR per month.

Mika Lehtimäki is the technical and product development manager at Auraprint. He initially joined the company in 1996 as a printer but soon began to progress. He took the role of shift manager in 2003 before promotion to the role of technical manager in 2008. The secondary role in product development soon followed, which resulted in Lehtimäki becoming responsible for purchasing all equipment, including investing in the company’s first GEW UV LED curing systems.

The investment consisted of 48 LED cassettes, which are a mixture of GEW’s UV LED systems… water-cooled LeoLED, and air-cooled AeroLED. These are installed across the company’s five flexo machines: an MPS EFA+530, a Bobst M6 and a Nilpeter FA4. The initial investment began in 2019, however, when Auraprint purchased two LeoLED cassettes for its MPS machine, with the intention of testing how UV LED could be used in the current processes.

Lehtimäki admits that Auraprint originally expected plenty of work to be involved in the transition to UV LED but notes that the team was pleasantly surprised by the speed of the process: ‘For us, we expected the transition to UV LED to be arduous and time-consuming, particularly with changing our printing-ink profiles. The reality was totally different, though. Auraprint production foreman Sami Korhonen worked closely with Sun Chemical to ensure we had the correct inks to work with our new GEW cassettes. The process of printing-ink changeover took around six weeks –we were expecting it to take months, so this was very positive for us.

‘GEW team was also helpful throughout, working with our and Sun Chemical teams to ensure the chemistry was successful. This left us in a position where we were confident enough to change all our machines over to UV LED, meaning that we run 100 percent UV LED now. What surprised us even more was that we can now use LED on our varnishes – this was initially something we were told could be years away, but we have the capability in-house, meaning we never touch our mercury arc lamps anymore.’

This switch to LED, particularly with the varnishes, has allowed the company to take positive steps forward in its production, with UV LED becoming the norm across all its work: ‘For our label work, we always expected UV LED to become the number one curing method for us, once we had our color matches in-line with our previous processes,’ adds Lehtimäki. ‘However, to be able to use LED with our varnishes for the gloss finishing work we do, and even with the technical varnishes we use for booklet labels, is a real game changer for us. This saves even more time on the press as we no longer need to switch out our LED lamps for the mercury arc ones on our varnish stations, meaning our make-ready times are markedly reduced.’

Lehtimäki is similarly upbeat in his praise of the newer technology: ‘In simple terms, our production speeds have increased by 20 percent. We’re also seeing a much better curing of dark printing ink, which has made customers even more satisfied with the products they receive.

‘We also see a better opacity with LED white, and we’re saving ink, too. To be more specific, we now no longer need to apply opaque white to two print units; we can just use one, so we have effectively gained a print station.

‘There are less obvious benefits that slowly add up as well. There’s minimal maintenance and cleaning with UV LEDs, particularly compared to traditional arc lamps, which is a big time saver and means we can spend more time in production. We see this benefit in our machine operators who can get on with the printing aspect of their jobs much quicker.’

Lehtimäki also believes Auraprint is seeing lower overall costs: ‘The UV LED inks cost a little more, which I know many printers worry about, but the aniloxes are a bit finer, and because the curing is more efficient, consumption is less, so it’s cost neutral overall.

‘But the biggest benefit is in energy savings. We estimate that we save around 15-20 percent on total energy costs per year, compared to the costs if we still had conventional UV lamps curing.’

When asked whether he has considered going back to conventional forms of curing, Lehtimäki was clear: ‘The switch to UV LED is something we’re committed to. It’s a change we’ve seen so many benefits from, including faster and better curing, less maintenance and lower overall costs. At this stage, printers are missing out if they are not curing with LED.’

To find out more about GEW's UV LED curing systems, click here.