Open house shows first Latin American installation of Gallus granite press

C5 Design, the newly established label printing division of plastic bottle producer 4E de México, hosted an open house at its facility in Tultitlán on the outskirts of Mexico City on the day after Label Summit Latin America, writes James Quirk. Around 40 people saw demonstrations of the Gallus ECS 340 granite press, the first installation of the machine in Latin America.

4E de México, founded in 2006, created its label printing division in March with the installation of the ECS 340 to speed up turnaround of the products it supplies to various retailers in Mexico, including Wal-Mart.

The company produces plastic bottles for gels, shampoos and detergents with a line of over 150 different products. In 2009, 50 million externally printed labels were applied in-house to its products. The installation of the Gallus press, says general director Jorge Gonzalez, coupled with in-house design and pre-press departments, will help the company to turn a job around in just eight hours from label design, plate-making and the printing of the job. Workflow and platemaking equipment are supplied by EskoArtwork.

‘We often had to wait for a month labels to be done externally,’ he says, ‘so in-house printing allows much quicker turnaround. The speed of the press is a key element of this. The machine also helps us to produce products that we previously were not able to, such as fragrance varnishes which are applied on the press.’

4E de México has experienced rapid growth since its foundation, with 500,000 bottles now being produced daily. Three years ago the company employed 10 people; it now has a staff of 200 after a high last year of 500. Increased automation in the plant was cited as the reason for decrease in employee numbers.

The company has won a number of Wal-Mart best supplier awards, including first place out of 10,000 companies in 2008, and third place last year, in the ‘suppliers in development’ category. It will shortly begin to supply Wal-Mart in Central America and the US. 

The ECS 340 installed at C5 Design is a fully UV, servo-driven 8-color press with cold foil and lamination. Hans-Ramón Hofmann, Gallus’s sales director for Latin America, says: ‘A big advantage of the ECS 340 is its very short web path – 11 meters for 8 colors – so job changeovers don’t generate a lot of waste. The quick changeover means that it is ideal for short runs, while the granite base results in stable register.’ Hofmann revealed that a water-based version of the machine will be available at the end of the year.

The ECS 340, with over 30 installations worldwide since its launch at Labelexpo Europe 2009, is constructed from recyclable technical granite, which helps eliminate vibration and noise from the press line. The press is designed to reduce initial investment levels to allow the cost effective processing of commodity labels. 

Stefan Heiniger, vice-president research and development of the Gallus Group, says: ‘Thanks to its extremely high load-bearing capacity, technical granite is ideal for use in machine construction. It is responsible, among other things, for the user-friendly design of the Gallus ECS 340. The printing units are suspended on the granite structure, allowing the printer easy access and thus ensuring ease of operation. What’s more, granite is a natural raw material whose use has a very positive impact on the CO2 balance of the press. The eco-friendly design of the Gallus ECS 340 is underpinned by the ease with which the granite can be recycled once the press reaches the end of its life cycle.’   

Pictured l-r: Hans-Ramón Hofmann, Gallus’s sales director for Latin America; Gina Ortiz, design manager, C5 Design; Jorge Gonzalez, general director, C5 Design

This article was published in issue 3 of Labels & Labeling