Ivanhoe Caledonian has chosen a raft of IFS systems as part of a £1.6m investment to drive its smooth operational transition into packaging.
The Edinburgh general commercial printer was formed in 2017 by the merger of Ivanhoe Printing Company and Caledonian Colour Printers. The two long-established Scottish printing companies created a combined history of more than 80 years.
Synonymous with high quality commercial litho print, Ivanhoe Caledonian has more recently expanded into flat carton packaging production. It is now bringing all packaging production capabilities inhouse with a Petratto Metro Folder Gluer, B1 Foliant Pollux laminator and a baumannperfecta Pile Turner.
The equipment will be housed at a new central Edinburgh production site focused on serving packaging customers. It will also run a recently acquired 6 colour B1 Komori LSX that can handle both carton board and standard paper grades. Ivanhoe Caledonian’s long established Musselburgh operation will continue to produce general commercial print on its B2 Komori.
Explains Founder Director Keith Cockburn: “Scotland is known for its food and beverage industry and by 2019 we were expanding our offering towards packaging. This has been accelerated by the supply issues created by Brexit and the pandemic. Local customers are looking to create shorter supply chains with providers that can be very responsive. They want to be sure they will get what they want when they want it.”
He continues: “We can quickly and competitively deliver the volumes required and be flexible if there are any disruptions to the supply of raw materials. If asked, we can produce a little to keep them going and the rest as soon as we are able.”
The Petratto Metro Folder Gluer is designed for special converting and printed jobs. Its open and modular structure supports greater flexibility while its digital management system provides a responsive interface with the other elements and attachments of the system. Jobs and sheet movement are controlled from the console. It manages a wide range of applications from presentation folders and envelopes to multimedia packaging, straight line boxes, cartons, and table tents.
Keith states: “We didn’t have a folder gluer and were sending work out. Sub-contracting work exposed us in terms of quality, time, cost, and storage. We wanted to be in control and have the production flexibility that comes with producing everything under one roof. Being sure of our capacity and capabilities will help us win work too.
“We were recommended the Petratto by IFS. When we looked more closely it pipped others because of what it can do for us. It was more refined, easy to set up and user friendly for the team. We also liked the fast crash locking capability.
As for return on investment he says: “Within a year it will have generated the turnover to pay for itself. For us it was such an easy decision. It was more robust than the others we looked at and it was easy to use. We also trust the reliability of systems supplied by IFS and know that if we have any questions IFS will answer them for us – that is very reassuring.”
The 50 meters per minute and 3,000sph B1 Foliant Pollux 760NG high speed laminator replaces a B2 Foliant Taurus 530SF. Keith says: “The existing laminator had too much to do and was becoming a bottleneck. We needed more capacity. We did consider getting another B2 system but then decided the B1 would be the best fit and give us more when we need more. We did look at alternative systems, but the Foliant was the best value.”
Ivanhoe Caledonian’s IFS investment was completed with a baumannperfecta Pile Turner to support greater automation. States Keith: “A modern factory should consider automating manual roles where it can, and the pile turner will allow us to do just that. Team members can then focus on more complex operations.”
