German packaging company August Faller Group has put its name down for one of the first Heidelberg Primefire 106 digital colour carton presses, ordering it for the company’s pharmaceutical packaging branch.
Heidelberg says the company will obtain the machine sometime next year.
Primefire 106 is Heidelberg’s digital carton press, launched at drupa. It is in a race with Benny Landa’s nanopress S10 to be the first B1 digital printer onto the market, a race that Heidelberg has been leading for some time.
Primefire 106 uses Heidelberg feed, sheet transport and delivery, combined with Fujifilm inkjet technology. The two companies have been working together since 2014. They have also launched a digital inkjet label printer, Labelfire, using Gallus engineering and Fujifilm Dimatrix heads.
Industry analysts predict digital packaging printing will explode over the next few years, drupa saw a swag of manafacturers announce they were entering the market.
[Related: Heidelberg reveals digital strategy]
Dr Michael Faller, managing Faller at August Faller says, “We specialise in the production of secondary packaging for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, and see ourselves as a supply chain partner to our customers. The diversity of the Primefire technology will create new opportunities in packaging production, which is increasingly moving towards customisation, serialisation, and digitisation.”
Faller says, “Heidelberg is the ideal partner for us because of its process knowledge along the value chain. The partnership plays an important role in us being able to offer our customers new options for producing competitive and attractive packagings. Our employees are already looking forward to tapping the attractive opportunities offered by digital printing and upgrading their skills.”
Heidelberg says, the technology of the Primefire has further important benefits for Faller as a sustainable company as the water-based inkjet ink is recyclable, making the cardboard folding cartons even more environmentally friendly.
One of the goals of sustainability when it comes to resource efficiency.August Faller Group produces folding cartons, package inserts, and adhesive labels as well as combination products and packaging services – call for high availability and flexibility as well as top quality and zero defect production
The Primefire 106 was presented at drupa 2016 and is the first industrial digital printing system in B1 format. The first field test was recently started, and a further one is due to start at the end of the year. Heidelberg says it is on schedule with the market launch, with demand from customers already outstripping production capacity.
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