Offset Printing
RAKO – official opening in South Africa with the Gallus EMS
Thursday 07. April 2011 - At the end of February, the German-based RAKO-GROUP officially opened its new production site in Cape Town, South Africa. At the heart of the new production facility is a Gallus EMS.
The RAKO-GROUP is one of the largest and most modern adhesive label manufacturers in Europe. Its workforce of over 1,400 operate a total of more than 80 printing presses at a number of sites throughout Europe and Asia. An extremely successful partnership has existed with Gallus for several years now. The new branch in Cape Town, South Africa, was officially opened in February. RAKO labels Cape Town (Pty) Ltd. has a workforce of 23 and four state-of-the-art flexographic printing presses for the manufacture of high-quality adhesive and wraparound labels. The site’s centrepiece press is a ten-colour Gallus EMS with screen printing and cold foil finishing options.
South Africa represents an opportunity
By investing in the new site in South Africa, RAKO has extended its growth strategy to a further up- and-coming region. “We are a new market player in South Africa, an emerging market that is enjoying
strong growth. We boast one of the country’s most cutting-edge production facilities for adhesive labels and also benefit from the RAKO-GROUPs international customer relations. RAKO labels is planning for the long term in South Africa. We see the country’s recovering economy and its great potential for growth in the area of fast-moving consumer goods as an opportunity for the company,” underlines RAKO South Africa Managing Director Uwe Bögl.
Application flexibility and reliability
“Trend cycles are getting ever shorter in the adhesive labels market. Change has become an everyday occurrence and only companies with sufficiently flexible presses and a wide range of applications will enjoy market success. State-of-the art production resources and methods are therefore essential,” Bögl continues.
The Gallus EMS at RAKO in Cape Town maximises application flexibility. The ability to use any combination of printing and finishing processes on a single press opens up a virtually unlimited variety of applications. Thanks also to the unrivalled level of automation offered by the Gallus EMS, both large runs of labels with limited finishing (e.g. food labels) and short runs of labels with extensive finishing (e.g. labels for personal hygiene products) can be produced cost-effectively.
“Dependability and reliability in production are the top priorities for a press,” stresses Bögl. “At the same time, it needs to be sufficiently flexible to adapt to new production requirements at any time. The Gallus EMS enables us to excel in meeting these requirements, and fast job changes are no longer a problem,” he adds.
Successful partnership
RAKO has been using Gallus presses for flexographic printing for several years – to great success – and now the first Gallus EMS with ten flexographic printing units has been taken into operation in South Africa. Despite some difficulties, the experienced and well-versed RAKO and Gallus teams succeeded in installing the press within a very short space of time. The combination of comprehensive, cutting-edge prepress operations and the Gallus EMS now enables even the toughest demands to be met when printing adhesive labels and flexible packaging in up to ten colours.
“In the current climate, the reliability that a partner can bring to the table is becoming ever more important. We have got to know Gallus in various projects and our experience has been very positive. We have found the company to be an extremely reliable and flexible partner,” says Bögl. Ferdinand Rüesch, Vice-President of the Gallus Groups Board of Directors, adds: “We are extremely pleased that our successful partnership with the RAKO-GROUP, which has installed several of our presses in Europe and Asia, is now being extended to South Africa.”