French leader DCM ATN makes inroads into India

During his recent visit to India, Jason Elvery, area sales manager, Asia, DCM ATN, said, “It’s a big plus point for us to have an extremely customer-focused FIG as our distribution partner in India.”

In today’s competitive converting landscape, DCM finishing systems boast core technological advantages. “DCM machines are robust, reliable, easy to use, precise, and guaranteed for three years. And the main differentiator of their recent machines is the high level of automation. For example, the fully-automated Sleeve 6 Intense seamer, one of the five machines that Zircon Technologies has installed, is a perfect machine for precision and consistency with inline quality assurance and with no requirement for a skilled operator,” Gourav Roy, managing director, Flexo Image Graphics. 

The five DCM machines now running efficiently at Zircon Technologies are: Sleeve 6 Intense, a fully automatic high productivity sleeve seamer; Sleevecut (two units) for a wide range of perforation and cutting; Babycat for quality control of seaming strength and doctoring; and Serval slitter rewinder for slitting varieties of materials including films, papers, and foils. 

Jason Elvery and Sanjeev Sondhi

Sanjeev Sondhi, director, Zircon Technologies, said the company has been continuously investing in cutting-edge printing and finishing machines from FIG over the years, which is why they have bought the set of five DCM ATN machines to benchmark finishing to the next level. 

Narrating how DCM machines enhance automation, reduce wastage, and improve throughput, especially in the high-SKU and short-run environments, 

Elvery said, “Our fully-automated Sleeve 6 Intense ensures very low waste while setting up and zero waste during production due to its inline quality assurance. Many customers assume that fully automated machines are not for short-run jobs, but it’s not the case, as the amount of waste saved by automation quickly pays back the ROI of the machines. Our customers engaging only in short-run jobs choose Sleeve 6 Evo with a single unwinder and single rewinder. It’s a modular machine so that it can be upgraded with a non-stop rewinder, and potentially also a non-stop unwinder, at a later stage as business grows.” 

According to Roy, in the price-sensitive market of India, many tend to save money by purchasing low-cost seaming machines, which in the end causes huge wastes for set-up and defects such as weak seam strength, inaccurate seam position, incorrect lay-flat width or reel slipping. He added, “DCM ATN’s flagship machines like the Sleeve 6 are highly sophisticated and designed with full automations and permanent inline quality assurance, which in turn produce the highest-quality sleeves most economically.”

The shrink sleeve is a critical product to produce. Firstly, the correct volume of solvent must always be applied for making the seam, including when ramping up and down the speed of the machine, otherwise the seam strength will not be good. The Sleeve 6 has automatic control of the solvent applicator, ensuring constant volume applied at speeds from 10-m/min to 500-m/min without any intervention of the operator. And the flow of the solvent is automatically constantly measured, ensuring inline quality assurance.

The Sleeve 6 Intense

Secondly, the solvent must always be applied in the very precise correct position, which is less than 0.1-mm from the edge of the film; otherwise, the finished sleeve can cut the end-user’s hand.  The Sleeve 6 has automatic positioning of the solvent applicator, and with a micro-edge guide, it is precisely follows the same distance to the web edge, ensuring the correct position of the solvent application.

Thirdly, the size of the finished sleeve must always be correct, according to the size of the container. The lay-flat width – the width of the sleeve when produced, flat – is always ensured to be within a tolerance of +/- 0.15-mm on the Sleeve 6. Precise ultrasonic measurement permanently records the width of the sleeve; and if required, it triggers automatic adjustment of the forming table, so that the lay-lat width is permanently within +/- 0.15-mm.

Fourthly, to avoid any risk of the finished rewind reel slipping, Sleeve 6 has a fully automatic oscillation system, which can be fully personalised and includes an automatic lateral offset that ensures the finished rewind reels are perfectly balanced without risk of slipping, even where the seaming is very close to the fold.

Regarding the ROI which converters expect from the investments in DCM ATN machines, Elvery said, “Many of our customers across the globe who run both the Sleeve 6 and other machines say around EUR 40,000-50,000 waste is saved using the DCM machine.” 

DCM sleeve machines are compatible with diverse sleeve materials, viz, PET, PVC, OPS, PLA, and polyolefin. The film - and inks - must of course be suitable for the shrink sleeve. Inks can be solvent-based, water-based, or UV with different printing technologies, including flexo, rotogravure, digital, and screen.

The Sleeve 6 can run at 500-m/min even for the traditionally difficult jobs like very thin and extra large sleeves, which is truly a speed way ahead of any other conventional machines. 

The Sleeve 6 Intense chosen by Zircon Technologies is fully packed with inline quality assurance and various options such as perforation, hot-melt and pinhole microperforation, non-stop unwinder and non-stop rewinder. It is a fully automatic machine with less than 20 metres of waste when switching from one job to another. Elvery said, “Indian converters, as in other countries, do not all have the same profile. There are many into very long-run jobs with rotogravure while others print with digital and flexo machines for shorter-run jobs. What is important for those into short-run jobs is to have minimum waste, which the Sleeve 6 fully automatic machine ensures.”

“Several customers from India have visited the DCM ATN factory in France, which is just a 10 minute drive west of Paris, to test-run the fully automated Sleeve 6. Such visits always lead to the customers being fully convinced and investing in the DCM machines,” Elvery said.    

In his word of appreciation for FIG’s role in terms of market development, customer support, and accelerating the adoption of advanced DCM finishing machines in India, Elvery remarks, “Every DCM machine is designed to be extremely reliable and user-friendly, and we provide our customers full training and production support in the post-installation of all machines. However, it’s still important for customers to have great local support. With FIG as our Indian partner, our customers get the best after-sales service unconditionally.”