Malaysian labelling company installs new machine remotely

As with most manufacturers of capital equipment, the global pandemic and all that it has involved regarding travel restrictions, has forced US machine supplier Martin Automatic to innovate ways of working to keep its customers satisfied. Testament is a recent installation in Malaysia.

Malaysia labelling company Mega Label, which began life as a small print shop in Johor in 1987 with one printing press and six employees has grown to become one of the country’s major players in the narrow web market, with a variety of letterpress, flexo, digital and screen presses and a staff of more than 200. Today, the company supplies labels to the food, pharmaceutical, clothing, and health care sectors from its modern 6,000 sq m plant. In 2011, the company opened an additional production facility in Selangor, Malaysia, to cope with increasing demand and to shorten delivery times, and in 2012 set up a plant in Cambodia to fulfil the growing demand for textile labels.

The first Martin Automatic technology at Mega Label, which was installed in 2018, was an MBSC non-stop unwind/splicer and an STR automatic transfer rewinder, fitted to a 10-colour Gallus ECS 340 press. The Martins had an immediate impact on productivity and waste levels, according to Group General Manager Edmund Chan. “We save around 5-10% of material and 5-10 minutes per roll change – and these make significant contributions to productivity and therefore profitability,” he said, adding “ and it also has a beneficial effect on the environment.”

Based on this, Mega Label decided to order a second set of MBSC/STR machines in 2020 for its latest Gallus press, another ECS 340 – the only problem was that the Covid-19 pandemic had spread worldwide by then and travel had become virtually impossible.

Mega Label and Martin Automatic technicians set about creating a plan that would see the new equipment installed and running in commercial production in super quick time.

To ensure all practical details were covered, a pre-installation video conference was arranged to review all drawings and instructions so that both parties were comfortable with their respective tasks. Travis Yang, Martin Automatic’s Regional Sales Manager for Asia explained that Mega Label’s engineers and technicians were able to undertake the installation.

With the global pandemic continuing to disrupt normal business practices, Martin Automatic is working to develop its remote support service further and will shortly be releasing installation videos to assist customers in locations that cannot be visited in person.

Established in the US in 1958, Martin Automatic technology can be found in commercial production worldwide, and across a variety of industries, with a European office in Germany, and Asia Pacific covered from Taiwan.

If there is a positive to be drawn from the pandemic it’s the increased use of modern communication technology that is allowing companies to keep their customers satisfied remotely.

(PRA)

---

Subscribe to Get the Latest Updates from PRA  Please click here