Tsimis chooses Titan

Leading Greek converter Tsimis is the first European company to have bought the new Titan SR8 slitter rewinder. The latest generation machine of Titan's SR range of cantilever slitter rewinders had its official Bobst Group 'World Premiere' at drupa 2004 and has, says the company, already made an impact. In addition to the Tsimis sale four machines have been purchased by customers in Saudi Arabia, India, Australia and the UK.

Tsimis has a significant share of the domestic converting business in Greece, but is also expanding into other European markets. The company operates a modern converting plant, printing flexible packaging materials by both rotogravure and flexo processes. In addition, the factory supports a variety of other converting processes such as coldseal coating, wax lamination, hotmelt coating, pouch making and shrink sleeves production.

Within the next couple of years Tsimis aims to increase business substantially in other export markets in both eastern Europe and the Middle East. Four production lines are currently in operation, with a fifth line due for installation as Converting Today went to press. The new machine at the Athenian company brings its total Titan armoury up to five machines.

The choice of the Titan SR8 for its latest converting line project is "a perfect fit in order to maintain the high quality of flexible packaging materials produced at the plant". The design of the slitter rewinder has been conceived in a modular format, which makes future machine enhancements and up-grades to meet the demands of changing production requirements much easier.

Quality counts

This concept has also enabled the machine to be competitively priced, says Bobst, but at the same time "provides a higher level of technology, with improved web guidance and web handling capabilities for an even broader range of sensitive, flexible materials". Cork covered carbon fibre rollers and 'S' wrap centre drives help to provide the highest quality finished slit reels.

A new ergonomic design incorporates a compact and moveable 'overhead' operator console, which is claimed to be more user friendly. It completely replaces the former operator desk, thus saving considerable space for installation. The console has a robust, 'compact flash' embedded PC system which provides the operator with easy, visual machine diagnostics and "excellent levels of access" to stored data, for improved productivity and simple job repeatability. Running speeds of up to 700m/min (2,300ft/min) are now achievable for web widths of 1,050 – 1,350mm.

In order to conform to new EU directives, Titan says it has developed a strong and operator friendly safety system, without compromising machine productivity or efficiency. Using a combination of photoelectric, laser beam and mechanical guarding, compliance with EU safety regulations is assured, says the company.

The Titan SR8 offers three web path configurations to suit converters' specific requirements. An option to include the fully programmable automatic knife positioning system enables accurate positioning of 10 razor or rotary type knives in only 90s, adds Titan. The additional investment in this feature alone is quickly recovered through much reduced machine downtime and re-starts for frequent, short run production, it explains.

There are now said to be more than 1,800 Titan slitter rewinders installed globally in over 70 countries. With an extensive network of customer service and support facilities throughout the Bobst Group Local Market Organisation (LMO) worldwide, spare parts, maintenance contracts and technical support is assured to all customers, stresses the company.