OVER DEZE AFLEVERING
As the costs of paper, inks, silicone, and chemicals rise due to inflation, printers everywhere have no choice but to focus on reducing waste to protect profit margins and the environment. Bold Printing sought a solution from Baldwin Technology that eliminates water using a spray-free, all-in-one cleaning process. Bold Printing Malmö AB, Mikael Olsson, and Baldwin Technology’s Process Engineer, Martin Maier, spoke with “Unlocking Potential’s,” Tyler Kern about this exciting step in the printing process.
Bold Printing is one of Sweden’s most prominent commercial printers, producing everything from magazines to newspapers for a large media group. Paper and energy are the two main pain points for Bold Printing today. With paper prices skyrocketing and energy prices predicted to be at an all-time high this winter, Bold Printing knew it needed to find a way to reduce costs. “The problem is, we cannot raise the prices on our customers, and even if we did, most of our customers are our own, so it’s the same wallet anyway,” Olsson said.
Olsson said his operations tested Baldwin Technology’s PREPAC Zero solution a year ago. “We started with one printing tower in September of last year for a month, and then we used another tower,” Olsson said. “We successfully did it from tower to tower, and now we have PREPAC Zero in five of them now.”
For Maier’s part in R&D for Baldwin, he is integral to developing and testing new products and helps install the PREPAC for the customer. “If a customer is interested in our product, I go to the customer and install the PREPAC,” Maier said. “I make some modifications to the wash program and the hardware and software, so the customer, in the end, has less wash time, which means less downtime and waste at the end.”
Since adopting PREPAC Zero in his plant, Olsson said he’d seen many benefits. “We can have shorter washing programs because the cloth is more effective. It cleans better. Shorter programs reduce the waste of washing cloths, so it’s a big savings.” And rundown wash programs were also shortened by the process. Because the new system is waterless, it eliminates leaks, which reduces maintenance. The ultimate result for Olsson is the presses stay cleaner.
