Heidelberg has launched the company’s first fully-digital label press, the Gallus One inkjet press, into the Asia Pacific market.
The launch follows a a four-day label printing open house at Heidelberg Indonesia’s showroom in Jakarta. Heidelberg welcomed 230 delegates from the Asia Pacific region at the open house event. Dario Urbinati, chief executive at Gallus and Thomas Frank, Heidelberg’s regional director for Asia Pacific attended.
at the open house, guests saw live demonstrations of the Gallus One inkjet press and the Gallus Labelmaster 440 flexo press.
Equipped with a range of automation features, Gallus One offers high print quality, consistency, and reliability, according to Heidelberg. The company adds that the press takes ease of operation to a new level by including a newly developed automated print head cleaning method, eliminating the need for manual cleaning and extending the lifespan of the print heads.
Gallus One can print 70 metres per minute, even with high opacity white of up to 85 per cent. With a printing width of 340mm, it handles a variety of self-adhesive materials such as papers and plastics, as well as unsupported materials.
Gallus One fully integrates into Heidelberg’s Prinect workflow. Heidelberg and Gallus developed the system jointly. It combines Heidelberg’s digital printing and software knowhow Gallus’s expertise in label printing.
At the open house, Frank spoke about the label printing as an increasingly important area of focus for the Heidelberg Group in the region. He said, “For this reason, we have opened the new showroom here in Jakarta, right in the center of our region, in a country where packaging and label production are growing well above the global average.
The Gallus One digital inkjet press launch in the Asia Pacific market follows successful installations in Europe and the US. Frank added, “This is a sound basis for our regional launch here. We have the infrastructure in Asia to handle press hardware, software, and consumables.”
Urbinati and Gallus Group head of global sales Thomas Schweizer also discussed the rise of smart, connected printing and the future of the label and packaging industry during the event.
At drupa 2024, the companies will show further extensions to the Gallus One. drupa takes place in Düsseldorf, Germany, from 28 May to 7 June.
