Founded by Johan Wilhelm Schur in 1846, Schur Pack International A/S maintains its status as the world's oldest family-owned business to this day. Its Danish subsidiary, Schur Pack Denmark A/S, operates two production sites in Horsens and Vejle. They specialize in providing high-end general packaging solutions to brand owners with a strong focus on the food sector, which accounts for approximately 80% of their customer base.
On the factory floor in Horsens, there are three offset presses: two Rapida 106 machines, each equipped with seven colors and capable of using both UV and water-based inks. Additionally, there is a Rapida 145 six-color press in a double-coating configuration that can apply UV varnish. A range of ECO3 prepress and printing solutions facilitate a highly automated workflow at Schur Pack.
"Celebrating 175 years of innovation in 2021, Schur Pack is known for its high reliability and excellent quality. We consider ourselves the leaders of the pack. For over 20 years, we've successfully partnered with ECO3, benefiting from their local support and proximity to our factories. We've experienced no major issues with our plates or equipment during all this time", says Allan Laursen, Director of Operations - Schur Pack Denmark A/S
The operation at Schur includes an Avalon N16-90 VLF (Very Large Format) platesetter, Energy Elite Eco plates and Arkana 125 smart thermal plate processor from ECO3. The CtP system is fitted with a robotic plate loader, which has automated the handling of plates and reduced downtime caused by plate loading.
"With the old system, we had to load plates three or four times a day, which was very time-consuming. The new robotic loader can handle a whole pallet of plates, enough for at least 14 days. This frees up a lot of time for our operators to take on other tasks in production or the plate department."
The average job run length is around 14,000 to 15,000 B3 sheets, but the Horsens factory also regularly prints much longer runs, up to several hundred thousand sheets. Choosing ECO3's Energy Elite Eco thermal plates, which have very high durability, plays a vital role in maximizing press utilization and delivering high performance.
"We have found that the Energy Elite Eco plates are very robust. They can easily print up to 80,000 to 100,000 sheets before we need to change them. That is a big gain in productivity without compromising on quality."
The sustainability aspect of ECO3's solutions is also crucial for Schur Pack. The company has been able to significantly reduce paper waste, water consumption and chemical usage.
"Our ECO3 products are actually helping us reach our sustainability goals. For example, with the Arkana processor and Energy Elite Eco plates, chemical use has been cut by half and water consumption is down to one-tenth."
Looking at potential future gains, the Schur Pack team is currently evaluating the benefits of two other key ECO3 innovations: SPIR@L screening technology in combination with SolidTune software for ink savings.
"The SPIR@L screening and SolidTune solutions are very interesting for us. First, they offer significant gains in terms of quality. Secondly, they can help optimize our ink consumption and increased sustainability."
Summing up the well-established collaboration between Schur Pack Denmark and ECO3, Laursen concludes, "ECO3 is the right partner for us because we share the same drive to continuously improve our products. In our experience, they're always ahead of the curve with new technology."