Above: Wayne Quayle (Currie Group), Will Tompson (The Van Dyke Press), Claudio Piredda (OMET), and Mark Daws (Currie Group)
The Van Dyke Press has announced the purchase of a OMET XFLEX X6.0 530, in partnership with Currie Group, at drupa.
Will Tompson general manager of The Van Dyke Press, said the Sydney-based company is thrilled to partner with OMET again after purchasing the first OMET machine in Australia 14 years ago.
“Our relationship with OMET through Currie Group goes back to 2010,” said Tompson.
“We first purchased the Omet [OMET XFLEX X6.0 430] and the machine has been fantastic. But as the business has continued to grow, we needed more capacity, more speed, and more UV power to allow us to run the press faster and the OMET XFLEX X6.0 530 provides all of that for us,” said Tompson.
“We print aluminium foils and the OMET XFLEX X6.0 530 allows us to run an additional row for every size. Where we had three across, we now have four, which allows up to pick an additional 33 per cent capacity with no extra operators. Where we were four across, we now go to five and pick up 25 per cent more capacity. We think on a press 100mm wide, we’ll end up with about 60 per cent more output. The speed and width of the machine will make a dramatic difference and allow us to continue to grow and give our customers more confidence that we can take on more volume.
“We’re also buying an additional die-cutter for the same work so we will go from three of those to four and the die-cutters are already set up for 520 so the new wider press will allow us to run our existing three and the new four die-cutter to their full width so there’s no additional investment so the 530 is a no brainer for us,” said Tompson.
“Our history is in mold labelling. We’ve been a sheet fed printing company for 65 years. We started in paper labels such as beer labels, dog food and soup cans. Many years ago, we diversified into in mold labels – we were the first company in Australia to do that. Later, we got into sheet fed lidding for paper-based substrates that were able to be converted through sheet fed process because that’s all we had.
“For 15 years we pursued that business which went well but we could never get past a certain point. Too many people were wed to aluminium lids and one of the largest customers told us they didn’t want paper anymore, they wanted aluminium, and we had no choice but to buy aluminium or lose a large customer.
“We went through the research, and we had no pre-conceived ideas of brands of flexo, we had never been in flexo so we looked at all the presses and believed 14 years ago that OMET was way ahead of the others.
“We had the first OMET in Australia and we were thrilled with it. It was an excellent investment for us, and we thought we might fill half the press with aluminium lidding and then get into shrink sleeve and other associated flexible packaging. We didn’t need to. The aluminium business just continues to grow and grow and now we need more cutters and wider press,” said Tompson.
“Because it was 14 years later, we didn’t go just to an OMET. We had all the main players involved and we took it very seriously. We took a lot of time researching and having got to this point we’re very happy with our decision.
“My operators weren’t interested in the other machines because they have had such a good experience with OMET in the past. I wanted to do the due diligence and make sure I wasn’t missing something, but effectively my people said to me, ‘why are you bothering we just want another OMET’ so we’re very happy.”
According to Tompson, one of benefits of working with the Currie Group is its reliability and extensive network of engineers.
“There are other players out there that don’t have as many feet on the ground as Currie Group. We’re also in sheet fed and to see how even the really big players have less and less engineers on the ground it becomes critical – downtime hurts.
The OMET XFLEX X6.0 530 is expected to be installed before end of the year.
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