Labelisten, a German converter of roll labels and stand-up pouches, has installed two Cellcoat laminating units, the T14 and T30 to improve productivity in its flexible packaging production.
The T14 model is designed for reel-to-reel lamination of a variety of label substrates and applications using a rapid stabilised heating system. It features a short web path to reduce waste and a web tension device for handling extensible materials and is fitted with an air shaft and rewind for film and stock unwind.
After the company installed an HP Indigo V12 2025, it was quick to secure an order for another Cellcoat laminator, this time a T30 model for flexible packaging.
Jonathan Smith owner of Cellcoat explained: “The issue with the wet lamination process is the long turnaround times required for each job. This creates bottlenecks in production, extends lead times, and increases costs for work-in-progress storage.”
Solving this bottleneck was critical to Labelisten remaining competitive, being able to handle growing order volumes efficiently, and meeting tighter delivery deadlines from customers. He continued: “Whilst thermal lamination costs a little more, the job is ‘ready now’. As soon as the web is rewound, it can be further processed thanks to Cellcoat’s unique chill roll arrangement between the laminator and the rewind.”
With no more liquid adhesives and chemicals to contend with, or extended drying/curing phases, the higher running speed of the Cellcoat T30 provides instant availability for pouch finishing steps. According to Labelisten’s Nicolai Erhart: “The main real-time benefits include a massive increase in production throughput, elimination of waiting times between lamination and subsequent processes, improved workflow reliability, greater operational flexibility, and the ability to respond much faster to urgent or high-volume jobs. An all-round win-win!”
Where production speeds previously were around 25m/min, Labelisten now sees 60-75m/min, giving a near threefold increase in capacity with no added labour cost. Mr Erhart concluded: “Installing the Cellcoat thermal laminator has opened new opportunities that were previously impossible or simply not feasible. With our new HP Indigo V12, we can handle long print runs economically and quickly in digital mode. As a result, we are receiving more large-quantity orders. These require extremely highly complex and rapid finishing steps afterwards, which the new Cellcoat laminator enables us to do. We can now manufacture reliably in-house, without risking bottlenecks or having to outsource parts of the workflow.”
