Following the acquisition of Enprom Solutions in July 2019, AB Graphic International has expanded its portfolio of products in the narrow web market to offer solutions, including seaming, doctoring, and cutting equipment for shrink sleeves.

As part of this, a sleeve seaming machine, model eRS, has been transferred to the AB Graphic International technological demo center located in Elgin, IL, USA, where on-site training in sleeve maintenance and seaming will be offered through Enprom’s patented Smart Wheel system.

Given this strategic action, customers and partners of A B Graphic and Enprom from all over North America will now be able to carry out specialized training. In addition, clients and potential customers will be able to see the solution in operation, test and check different materials with the machine on-site, without the need to travel to Europe.

Josep Orozco, Flexpac and Sleeve global expert at Enprom Solutions, recently sat down to answer questions about this new installation in Elgin.

Q: Josep, why was this machine chosen for installation?
Because the sleeve market continues to grow exponentially and even despite the pandemic that we are going through, the market is growing at a rate of 8% annually throughout the world. The main reason is the importance of marketing to the consumption habits of the population, which is causing the sleeve label to be increasingly present on all types of products.
More and more label customers want to – and try to – enter the sleeve market, which is why it has become one of the key products in the label market that complements A B Graphic International’s product portfolio.

Q: When did it arrive in Elgin?
The sleeve seaming solution was installed at the AB Graphic International USA facility in Elgin in May this year. Since then, training and test sessions have been conducted with potential clients.

Q: Who is trained/on hand to demo the kit/the on-site expert?
Currently, AB Graphic International has a number of staff that are full-time specialist technicians to ensure timely support and perform the necessary on-site demonstrations.

Additionally, customers also benefit from remote support from Enprom Solutions through intuitive operational maintenance software.

Q: Do you have plamns for other equipment at the facility?
Yes, there are plans to launch new models of nonstop butt splicing winders. For this, equipment will also be sent to the technology demo center in Elgin so they can conduct training, test sessions and on-site trials.

Q: What is the demo center like?
The demo center is 2200 square feet and currently accommodates twp Digicons, one with an automation focus configured as follows: inline buffer/unwind (with HP8000), self-wound lamination, flexo, fast track die, electronic dispro, iscore, autoslit, SGTR with applicator, lower rewind. The other Digicon is a beverage spec’d machine, with Big Foot, flexo and flat-bed screen. The facility includes a Digilite, along with the eRS seamer.

Q: How many pieces of equipment has Enprom sold in North America? Anything worth mentioning specifically?
As mentioned above. The acquisition of Enprom Solutions happened a year ago and since then, work has been done on the commercial promotion of the product and its installation in the technology center in Elgin.

Despite this short period of time, two sleeve seaming machines have already been sold during 2020, and we are confident that some projects will reach their final stage of maturity and more deals can be disclosed in the coming months.

The idea of having a solution in the demo facility is to position the brand, compete in the label market and facilitate expansion reaching potential customers from South America to Canada.

Enprom covers machinery for almost the entire flexible packaging market, but currently the key products are:

• The sleeve, which has a great current growth – Enprom offer a wide range of solutions such as sleeve seamers, cutters and doctorings.
• Short-run flexible packaging, which is a growing market, has found digital printing and thermal lamination a fast, effective solution that reduces the high material waste of the conventional system.
• Enprom also develops thermal lamination solutions reducing the time to market to zero.
• Hybrid converting solutions – Enprom offers innovative solutions by adding different inline processes that reduce the impact on the environment, as well as sustainable circular economy solutions that guarantee recyclability and compostability.
• Finally, Enprom also focuses on easy open solutions (easy peel or reclose). Every day we are increasingly in demand for inline process machines to carry out flexible packaging with easy opening, with rotary die and label insertion.

Thanks to our innovative systems, the high ROI that all our technologies present, the cost savings and waste reduction, our clients can position themselves within the sleeve or flexible packaging market, thereby improving the final quality of their product for a more competitive price and increasing their capacity and productivity.