“Our goal is to become the #1 manufacturer of laminating”

Lamination of flexible packaging has grown in demand in the past some years, and Comexi has achieved a market leading position in this segment. We talked to Carles Rodríguez i Nieto, Brand Manager Comexi Lamination & Offset about what measures the company took to rise to the top and what the future beholds.

How crucial are laminators for the operations of Comexi and how much is the turnover from the same?

Carles Rodríguez: Given that 25% of the total turnover of Comexi comes from laminators, you can tell how vital their role is in the company. Since one of Comexi’s goal is becoming the largest dealer of state-of-the-art laminators, we invest a significant amount of time and money to design and improve the laminators, and this is proving to be a profitable venture. Since we developed the multipurpose laminators with gravure, flexo, solvent less, solvent based, water based and even holography; Comexi experienced a boost in sales doubling the units of three years ago. Unlike its predecessors, the multipurpose laminators are not only ecofriendly but also showcase unrivaled levels of performance. For instance, the multipurpose can come up with coatings that are of next-level quality optical results and high barrier properties. Some examples are glossy surfaces, texturization, paper touch, soft touch, holography and oxygen barrier.

How would you rate the importance of duplex and triplex laminations?

Carles Rodríguez: Currently, to apply barrier coatings and optical effects, multipurpose laminators are leading the market. We have more than double the sales of this kind of laminators in the past 3 years. Customer selfawareness and the new legislations are pushing the society towards a new paradigm in waste management and recyclability which at the same time is driving the industry towards reducing number of layers in flexible packaging. Given that our vision is to produce eco-friendly products, Comexi will fully commit to this and thus, to reducing layers on lamination. Owing to this fact, I can speculate a fall in sales for the triplex laminators as they contain more layers and therefore are not recyclable. As a result, I may as well surmise a boost in duplex sales as they are more easily recyclable and hence, they may need to undergo value addition to produce impeccable quality. To achieve the same level of end product performance with less number of layers, we are sure the technical coatings will play a mayor role. This is why Comexi recently developed a new gravure trolley with closed and pressurized doctor blade chamber, to apply more efficiently all these broad range of coatings that will replace some layers like aluminum. In this sense, the perfect dosing and optical results, as well as self cleaning and fast changeover time have been the main project drivers.

What is the role of seminars in the overall success of Comexi?

Carles Rodríguez: Possibly, one of fronts that gives Comexi a more competitive hand in the market remains to be seminars, training and technical support. The Comexi CTec is the European hub of packing knowledge responsible for hosting plenty of activities such as industrial tests, operational and maintenance trainings, seminars, assessments and conferences all of them in collaboration with international global suppliers. In 2018 more than 700 converters visited the Girona technological center. I can personally testify that, in site assessment and training along with seminars are the bestadded value we can bring to our partners. This is because the conferences incorporate the latest trends in the market given all suppliers bring forth their best work practices. The information gained is practiced on Comexi machinery, and by doing so we get to unveil optimal means of production that lead to boost productivity and quality on lamination processes. To get a broader perspective, we host the seminars in various languages which include English, German, Spanish, French, Russian, German, Chinese and most recently Korean. Additionally, the seminars are also done overseas to cover several markets. Most recently, it included Russia, Brazil, Japan, and Thailand. Also, we do advanced lamination seminars, dedicated lamination courses at customer hubs to enhance quality, productivity, and color matching to mention but a few. As a part of the training and seminars, we can get customer assessment, new product developments among many other activities. Similar to any other endeavor, sharing knowledge and helping customers to grow and do a better job leads to overall quality in the market. At Comexi, we have established a new facility in Miami, Florida, that features top of the range machinery, comprehensive spare parts hub and highly skilled personnel. In return, this will maximize the population that benefits from the seminars and as well help the locals bring forth competitive products. As evidence of the benefits of training and seminars, we can identify areas that are having a hard time growing and come up with ways to change the results. For instance, Argentina has been undergoing slow growth. However, specialists speculate a rise in production in these areas given the fact that they have come up with optimal means of production. All the American territory, south center and north America are on top of the list of markets that realized positive growth.

And what other tasks are credited for giving Comexi a competitive edge over its competitors?

Carles Rodríguez: Given how much we value customer perspective, Comexi also indulges in innovation and customer focus platforms. The insights not only allow us to notice where potential changes to improve customer experience and make the products more relatable. Additionally, the ergonomic nature of our machines is unmatchable in the market and thus making us the ideal choice when it comes to laminating products. In this sense, the flexo trolley in lamination is becoming extremely popular, even to apply cold seal in the most accurate and efficient way with a 2 minutes change over time and self-cleaning! Due to the huge movement towards recyclability of flexible packaging, the reduction of layers is pushing the market to specialized and broad range of technical coating. In this sense, the Comexi Offset CI press is leading the market by using a solvent free offset ink, with a broad range of in line flexo EB coating options. This way customer achieves the fastest time to market, unbeatable printing quality and reduction of layers by front printing and in line anti scratch flexo EB coatings. Also, the recently unveiled Comexi Cloud has proved to be a fantastic online platform to control the production. The cloud provides data in real time which enable our customers to make data analytics, improve productivity, spare part ordering online, access to technical assistance, technical docs and forecast job costing in advance thanks to the job costing calculation tool. As a result, we can determine optimal routes for Comexi lamination and then provide quality products at consumer- friendly prices.

In total how many L20000 and holographic lines have you sold so far?

Carles Rodríguez: Over the past year we sold 3 L20000 water based laminators for digital printed films and 3 Futura cast and cure holographic machines. We foresee the water-based applications will have a bright future with the digital printing. On the other hand, holographic effects are becoming a trend in the market to such an extend that we launched a holographic kit to apply them in our most successful Multipurpose laminator, the ML2.

Are there specific applications for solvent or solvent less adhesive or is everything possible currently with waterbased adhesive?

Carles Rodríguez: In terms of lamination, the solvent less is a relatively top-notch technology that Comexi has provided with unwavering support. However, there are some applications that SL cannot perform, which include spot lamination and very high demanding applications like very high thermal resistance or bond strength. With multipurpose laminators, on the other hand, you can perform either using solventless, water -based adhesive and also solvent based thus does not limit one to a single choice.

Are there countries that possess different requirements of operation or are the conditions similar in all the markets?

Carles Rodríguez: As I said earlier on, most countries are adopting laws that push towards eco-friendly products and consequently require recyclable packaging and reducing the emissions of VOC. Producing eco-friendly products ranks top among the visions of Comexi, owing to both these facts, some products like the triplex may go out of the market, specially involving aluminum. In other markets such as Europe and the USA, the new coatings and the testing for compostable adhesives are slowly gaining popularity although there is a big challenge for achieving real barrier properties and composability altogether. The main driver that is already changing the sector is the recyclability, so reducing number of layers by applying technical coatings.

How do you evaluate inline laminating and slitting in order to reduce production steps? Would Comexi add such a line to their portfolio?

Carles Rodríguez Where there is a lamination, there always is slitting downstream, however, slitting by itself usually is a different process. You can’t say it wouldn’t make sense in certain applications but in the end, converters are usually performing many different kinds of jobs during a day and you can’t compromise the work of one machine because another one is doing changeover or have a lower production speed. Consequently, slitting inline with lamination would only make sense in applications where the same application is running day and night.

In a press release you mentioned a speed study; would you mind sharing the results of the speedy survey as well as what the research may have influenced you to change?

Carles Rodríguez: The success of a company cannot be tasked upon an individual or two. It is only teamwork and contribution of all stakeholders that fuel a company’s success making it rise to the top of the list. At Comexi, we highly value the insight of our customers as they pinpoint areas that we can improve and at the same time help us to identify where things are not going as expected. This very example of speed survey, lead us to increase the speed of our top of the range solvent less laminator Comexi SL2 from 450m/min to 500 m/ min. Some of our customers believed that such a machine would be ready to run at higher speed, and they proved to be right. A good example is, if you were to refill your adhesive every now and then, it is apparent that you would lose time that you could have used to produce. If you were to put automatic refilling into use, you would maximize up-time increasing profitability. Now this is the very standard in all our equipment. Also, we found out the need of alarm systems being integrated in the laminators to enable companies to respond fast to any glitches. What fueled this thought is the fact that a company can drive into huge losses by having production material being wasted due to a technical issue. To solve various problems that we have seen in our customers face in the past, the machines can be integrated with an online system which not only allows you to see how the devices are doing at a particular time but also aid in planning a schedule for your routine. To improve our customer’s experience, we share this in the training and seminars trying to find solutions that will help to overcome these issues.

And what future developments should we speculate for Drupa 2020? Carles Rodríguez: Comexi is working on new projects for Drupa 2020. Moreover, we are always unveiling new projects that will lead to cutting edge products that tackle new challenges. One of the areas that the company aims to improve is the multipurpose laminators. This is in an aim to bring forth better coatings and finishings leading to the production of topquality products. Additionally, the development will lead to better visual effects that will allow our customers to cover any application in the flexible packaging market. This flexibility and modularity is what we are aiming for. Also the cost modeling so converters will be able to forecast the cost of a job in advance thanks to the machine learning and the sensorization of all the machine elements.