Excel Labels creates efficiencies with ABG turret rewinder technology

Midlands-based Excel Labels, established in 1992, has seen a marked increase in production efficiencies following investments in application solutions from leading finishing specialists, A B Graphic International (ABG).

As a leading manufacturer with extensive production facilities, Excel produces labels and tags for nationwide industrial and retail use. The company prides itself on providing its customer base with quality and consistency that is supported by superior service and high levels of technical support.

A long-standing customer of ABG, having invested in multiple Vectra turret rewinders since 1996, Excel had seen a growth in demand for short run length label rolls used in portable printers. By example, a regular running job had to be die-cut and then finished off-line, much due to the very short meterage making it unsuitable for regular in-line turret finishing. As a consequence, finishing had become manpower intensive with a typical job taking up to 4 days to manually slit and re-roll - a task so time consuming it was commercially unviable.

Following discussions with ABG, Excel Labels purchased a Vectra ECTR 4 spindle turret rewinder, which, for this investment, included an automatic core loading module enabling cores to be positioned automatically and accurately onto the rewind shaft, thereby enabling a fast cycle time that was simply not possible when loading conventionally by hand. The investment resulted in instant efficiency gains across all roll lengths.

“With the new ECTR auto core loader, we are now running the small roll work inline as well,” said Excel Label’s managing director, Andrew Keatinge. “And by doing so, we are achieving a speed of 38 metres a minute per 13-metre cut. The job which collectively took us 5 days across two machine processes, now takes just one day processing fully in-line. The productivity results are awesome, saving us not only days of intensive manual work but also our sanity!”

Since investing in this Vectra ECTR 4 spindle turret rewinder with the automatic core loading option, Excel have now placed a further order for two more ECTR’s with core loaders, and an additional order to retro fit an automatic core loader module onto one of their other 8 ABG turrets.