GALLUS OPENS NEW CENTRE ON 100 YEARS
Gallus has celebrated its 100 year anniversary by opening its new Gallus Experience Center, and launching Converting on its Gallus One digital press, as part of the company’s Gallus Experience Days.
The Swiss business, owned by Heidelberg, has been welcoming customers and prospects from some of the world’s leading printers and converters, as well as partners and brand owners to celebrate its milestone all week.
Dedicated to the digital transformation of the label and narrow-web industry, the Experience Center aims to facilitate the industry’s future success by fostering collaboration to drive innovation and sustainability. Gallus says whether you are a manufacturer, supplier, converter, printer, or brand, you are invited to use the new facility to explore ideas, test and develop new technologies, and teach and experience a technological ecosystem.
In addition, Gallus will use the facility to showcase conventional, hybrid, and digital Gallus products, software, and cloud-based solutions, next-generation machines being produced, and supplier partner technologies.
Dr Ludwin Monz, CEO, Heideleberg said, “As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Gallus, Heideleberg is delighted to stand alongside the Gallus team this week – united, as one Group. Together, we are even stronger, and have a robust growth plan looking ahead.
“With labels and packaging now representing 50 per cent of the Group's total sales, the new digital and automated solutions we see introduced by Gallus today play an important role in the future of Heideleberg. As a result, Gallus is an important pillar within the company’s growth strategy, and we’re more committed than ever to its long-term future.”
With annual growth of more than two per cent in global print volumes, packaging printing is one of the strongest growth areas in the printing industry. Together with label printing, it is an important core area for Heidelberg. It says the technology is used in label production offers some of the greatest growth opportunities in the printing industry. One third of all labels worldwide are already printed digitally today. Digital printing is thus driving change in this promising market segment, with inkjet growth of around 6 per cent a year. Heidelberg intends to expand its position here with the Gallus One, its new digital label print system.
Dario Urbinati, CEO, Gallus Group, said, “We are committed to being in touch with the market and forecasting, and then responding to, likely trends that could impact our customers and brands. As a result, Gallus and Heideleberg are committed to leading the new digital transformation – driving ‘smart, connected printing’ to production automation and manufacturing efficiencies. Key to solving the labor issues of today, this will enable customers to reduce costs and increase both profitability and sustainability. At our new Gallus Experience Center, we have a team devoted to exploring new technologies/processes – such as artificial intelligence and Industry 4.0 – that could be integrated into labels and packaging to better inspire and engage future generations.”
To further drive the labels and packaging ‘digital transformation’ and help solve current labour shortages and increases in costs, Gallus is today also unveiling a new Heidelberg Customer Portal (HCP) that automates almost every customer touchpoint. In an industry first, future iterations of the solution will also provide predictive capabilities, using artificial intelligence (AI) to provide recommendations to increase productivity, reduce maintenance, and boost profitability. The new platform is expected to save customers, on average, up to 35 per cent in both time and money.
Further increasing its Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) advantage for label production, Gallus is additionally using the event to launch its new Gallus One with Converting. This solution brings everything inline and features a digital printer with an inline flexo station, a semi-rotary die cutter that can change a job within one minute and process up to 70m per minute, and vision inspection systems to ensure the highest level of quality and minimise waste. The company also revealed an option to upgrade an existing Gallus ECS 340 flexo press with a digital printing unit (DPU), transforming it into a Gallus Labelfire 340 hybrid press, but without the additional platform investment. This means that customers are now able to access all the flexibility and versatility of digital printing, with the reliability and precision of conventional printing and further processing technology.
Gallus says its products being launched are the result of a comprehensive consultation process with customers and brands. It says that after discovering that the next generation of retail consumers engages with the world in a completely different way, and in light of demographic challenges and other macro trends that are adding new and considerable short-term and long-term business challenges for converters, Gallus rewrote its vision and mission statements to support a new business direction.
Dario Urbinati concluded, “We are thrilled to welcome so many friends and colleagues this week to help celebrate our centenary in business, and to have the opportunity to share our exciting new products and thank the many amazing people within our business who have worked so hard to support us, as well as our incredible portfolio of customers. But this week is as much about the next 100 years and what we do next. This is why we’re excited to look beyond the graphic arts toward other industries – learning from how they’ve leveraged new technologies to welcome in the new digital age and cater to the next generation – so that we can modernise the labels and packaging industry and further increase our future success.”