GSI Technologies, a manufacturer of labels and printed electronics, announced the addition of a Preco FlexPro Laser cutter to its Burr Ridge, IL, USA facility. The investment broadens the company’s service offerings to meet ever evolving customer requirements – GSI has strategically invested in printing and fabricating lines to support medical and other high precision converting requirements. 

Dave Austin, president and COO, says, “Having precision laser cutting capability in-house will allow for additional component manufacturing processes to be controlled while being complementary to the services we already provide our customers. The advanced cutting capabilities of the equipment allow for cut-to-cut registrations as finite as .005″ (127 micron) or less which historically has been outsourced.”

GSI purchased the equipment from Preco Inc. with whom GSI has maintained a long term business relationship. “Preco has been very supportive building a system that meets our specific needs and is a valuable partner,” says Craig Mech, VP of manufacturing at GSI.  “The requirements of medical electrodes and multilayer structures continue to push the limits of printed electronics and GSI has positioned itself to be on the leading edge of process capabilities.”

Preco Inc.’s Jason Thoen, sales manager of Laser Converting Systems, comments, “GSI approached us with a project that required a number of technical solutions to meet their demanding specifications. Chief among these were challenging dimensional requirements as they relate to screen printed part registration. Once the screen printed features were precision registered by the vision cameras, a laser and high speed galvanometer beam deflection system was used to cut the matrix of parts from the screen printed sheet. We pursued a solution using a standard laser system configuration and then leveraged our in-house controls/vision engineering group and our process development team to provide a technical solution for GSI’s program. We appreciate GSI’s confidence in Preco’s technical capabilities to provide a solution to this challenging process.”