More than UV for the future
IST METZ increasingly strengthens its position as a supplier of high-quality UV systems and holds ever more the role of a competent technology partner around the key subject UV-curing. To celebrate the 25th company anniversary, IST METZ demonstrated, during the first UV Days in Nürtingen from 11th to 14th June 2002, that the new motto „more than UV“ is not just theory but a practical reality.
UV Technology Center with individual printing technologies
One first and significant milestone for the future development of IST METZ is the foundation of the company-owned UV Technology Center. As underlined in the welcome speech of Managing Director Joachim Jung, the company has already made significant investment in this unique facility. As the foremost example, a new six-colour 700 x 1,000 mm sheet fed offset press with coating tower and extended delivery has become a central element of this new facility. This means that the Nürtingen company maintains it’s innovative approach to the UV market and becomes the first UV supplier worldwide to develop a company-owned technology center and provide practice orientated printing techniques, which far exceed the laboratory stage. The new sheet fed offset press is one of the latest state-of-the-art printing machines and is available for test or training purposes for the entire UV-printing market.
As stated by Joachim Jung, “there is a great demand for this kind of facility. UV technologies are increasingly being adopted and over 56,000 units have been installed worldwide in the year 2001 compared to 35,000 systems in 1995. Significantly, UV curing has approximately 95 per cent market penetration for new machines in the narrow web rotary printing sector – this demonstrates how this market segment has been particularly shaped by developments in UV technology. With a share of 75 per cent, UV technologies are also more and more employed in continuous printing. In the market of sheet fed offset printing, the number of UV-users has already reached 12 per cent, whereas more than one third of the various different UV-applications in screen printing work with UV-curing technologies“.
Continuously growing use of UV technologies
According to Joachim Jung, “the continuing success story of UV technology is due to the great and diverse benefits this technology offers in practice. In the graphic arts industry for example, which is at present the most significant field of application, UV technologies work without any solvents and provide fast curing and the best results in terms of gloss, endurance and stability”. “The actual market trends show that there is still a great potential for UV technology in the printing industry”, says Joachim Jung. “It was in the area of specialisation for UV-printing that has opened up novel and unique opportunities for users to distinguish themselves from conventional printers and therefore create real competitive advantage in markets that are becoming increasingly difficult”.
In addition to the graphic arts industry, IST METZ is also working in other market segments which provide for very interesting future possibilities. These are, for instance, coating applications including siliconisation, adhesive application or lamination and industrial applications. Also, UV-curing of powder varnishes or varnish curing of three-dimensional bodies, for example for accessory parts in the automotive industry indicate that the growth of UV in industrial sectors is still in its infancy stage.
Networking the UV-competence
By virtue of the different influencing factors for UV-printing, Joachim Jung made clear proof of the fact that the UV technology is an extremely complex subject. Key parameters are the printing press, UV-inks and varnishes, but also plates, rollers, blankets, substrates etc. Whereas IST METZ provides in-house capacities in the core sectors of UV technology, i.e. development, construction and production of lamps, reflectors and lamp housings, the company group has established close partnerships in neighbouring industrial sectors as well as forming strategic relationships with companies like Technotrans, Kersten, etc. Also, relationships with expert technology partners in the fields of chemical raw materials, ink and varnish manufacturing, print rollers, substrates as well as partnerships with leading associations and organisations of the printing industry form an extensive network of UV-competence. Some of these partners will use the opportunity of the UV-Days in Nürtingen to provide information about their specialist working areas within the integrated „Table-Top-Exposition“.
This networked UV-competence enables the continuing development of unique fields of practice based upon a sound theoretical knowledge by market application and product segment. A good example for innovative UV technology is UV curing under oxygen-reduced conditions. The combination of these developments, and processes including a promising future in UV Inkjet printing, open up excellent opportunities for developing new fields of UV technology application.
A practical test for UV-coating
A practical demonstration in the field of UV-coating, which is one of the main applications for UV in sheet fed printing, provides an excellent example of the possibilities provided by the new printing press in Nürtingen. As explained Stefan Feil, Head of the UV Technology Center, “this presentation has been developed to clarify the influence of the screen roller on the UV-coating result. A so-called A strip mill roller/ribbon roller was utilized for this purpose, where several zones with different specifications are on one screen roller, i.e. screen counts and cell geometries are arranged next to each other. With the help of the print results, the effect of different screen roller specifications can be analysed”.
In a following company tour, the international participants of the UV-Days get a real impression about the different development stages of the IST METZ company group over the past 25 years. The company roots go back to the foundation of the Werner & Pfleiderer – Hildebrand Strahlentechnik GmbH share company in the year 1977. Five years later, Renate and Gerhard Metz took over the entirety of the business shares. The company’s name now shows how closely the company fortune has been connected with the name Metz since then. IST, the other part of the name, is the short form for Impuls-Strahlungstrocknung (impulse radiation curing) and goes back to the technology developed by Hildebrand in Oberboihingen 35 years ago.
