The Customer

Labels Tags & Inserts (LTI) is a typical family owned and operated business in Burlington, NC, where, as its names suggests, it manufactures a variety of products on a range of Mark Andy narrow web flexo presses in two- up to nine-colours.

The product

The company is renowned for the quality of its output and the innovation it brings to the label market. In particular, its use of spliced ‘dry’ films for inline adhesive lamination requires special skills and perfect surface treatment of the substrate. LTI is also looking to grow into the shrink sleeve market and is targeting local craft breweries and similar enterprises that do not have the resources to print direct onto cans but still need high quality graphics.

The problem

Owing to high humidity levels incurred at LTI’s North Carolina plant during the Summer months, the American Corona units fitted to the press originally were proving to be unreliable and also poorly supported by the manufacturer.

Previous manufacturing practice

This resulted in the flexo presses operating at slower production speeds to ensure the quality of Corona treatment, resulting in a massive drop in productivity to keep waste levels down, and a knock-on effect of increased costs.

The solution

After consulting with the press manufacturer, LTI was advised to specify Vetaphone Corona technology for its new flexo press. The VE1A unit fitted to the newly installed Mark Andy P7 features the established and well-proven design that separates the power unit from the treater station, which combined with the slow start-up mechanism on the iCorona generator, removes the danger of any condensation causing cut-out or corrosion issues.