Proslit preferred

9 June 2005



Second Spanish slitter goes to Suominen Flexible Packaging


Suominen Flexible Packaging is a leading supplier of flexible packaging in Northern Europe, producing film packaging flexo printed in up to 10 colours. The company specializes in hygiene product packaging, food packaging, retail packaging and special products. Turnover in 2004 was €69.2M, of which export and international operations accounted for €38.9M. There are five factories in Finland and others in Sweden and Poland. Two in-house prepress operations, also based in Finland, serve all the other factories. The company's workforce totals 620.

Strategy

Suominen's strategy focuses on sales of a narrow product range in selected marketing areas and aims at achieving "a clear advantage in efficiency and competition". The goal is regional market leadership in the company's selected market areas, with sales concentrating on the Northern European markets and on the new members of the EU and the St Petersburg region in Russia.

The company took delivery of its first Proslit Eikon slitter rewinder in the spring of 2003 which was installed in its operation at Nastola, Finland. And two years later a second of the Spanish built machines followed, which is installed and running at the recently re-furbished factory in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland.

The two slitters are used mainly for the production of laminated films and the slitting of other multilayer films used in the packaging of food and hygiene products.

"Proslit was chosen to be a supplier of our new machine investment because we have a long co-operative relationship with its parent company, Comexi - and also the price/quality relation was competitive," says Ari Olkinuora, production director at Suominen Flexible. "Both slitters satisfy our demanding requirements for working successfully with our wide variety of materials and substrates.

"It is quite common with our product range to have many small production runs, and we also use many different materials," he explains. These could include PE, CPP and OPP as well as different variations of laminated films, such as the latest applications of PE or PP film with paper."

This type of production work is ideally suited to the Eikon, which uses a turreting rewind system claimed to offer significant increases in productivity over other rewinding systems. A totally automatic operational cycle minimizes contact with the operator and the finished product and allows continuous production, thus permitting the user to make the best use of his investment and increase productivity to a much higher degree, according to Proslit.

Standard features include a motor driven, shaftless unwinder with automatic hydraulic roll loading, (pick-up from floor), shear and razor slitting options, independent tension control for each rewind shaft, automatic stop for diameter, and length or printed indicators.

Also included in this package is the automatic extraction of finished rolls and a motorized arm with double articulation for unloading them onto a pallet. A new design of automatic blade positioning system is also incorporated. Tension control features include a peripheral unit for toughness and uniformity of the roll and expandable friction shafts to control the taper tension.

The Eikon offers web widths of 1,350 and 1,650mm with maximum finished roll diameters of 600 and 800mm, respectively. Maximum master roll diameters are 1,000 and 1,250mm. Speeds of up to 600m/min can be achieved, according to the material being slit, while minimum slit widths are 40 and 25mm.

It was in 2004 that Suominen Flexible Packaging commenced the investment in its Polish factory, where the second slitter is installed. The capacity of the factory has now been doubled and with Eastern and Central Europe, Russia and the Baltic countries targeted as growth areas for the packaging industry, the idea is that with the help of the Polish factory, the company will be able to serve its customers in Eastern and Central Europe even better.

The enlarged factory is said to be one of the most modern in the area. New facilities, state-of-the-art equipment and well trained personnel all have to meet the high quality standards that Suominen demands.

"One reason we chose the supplier we did for the new slitter was a tight delivery time," continues Ari Olkinuora. "The schedule was dictated by a new customer, because we were just starting deliveries to them. Proslit was not only capable of responding to our tight demands over the schedule but had also taken note of the requirements of its customers to provide additional services and equipment for a reasonable price."

Expanding

The contribution of the Polish factory to Suominen Flexible Packaging's production will continue to increase due to the expansion of a new 2,600m2 area with increased capacity in printing, converting and lamination. An investment programme for the modernization of the printing and converting capacity in the factory at Norrköping, Sweden, is also scheduled for completion this year.

Contacts

Suominen Flexible Packaging: Tel: +358 3 288 0111 Proslit: Tel: +34 972 477 744




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Suominen Flexible Packaging
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Proslit machines have Eikon-ic status for Finnish company Proslit machines have Eikon-ic status for Finnish company


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