Founder Electronics’ Eagle Jet L1400 narrow web label press at China Print
In the digital sector there are no Chinese manufacturers selling equipment into the label and packaging sectors, yet. The Print China 2013 exhibition, in Beijing, saw the launch of a new inkjet sheetfed press and a range of new equipment from the Founder Group, planned to be sold more widely. By Sean Smyth.
In China, the Founder Group is a powerful company, employing 30,000 people in IT, healthcare and pharmaceutical. It has publishing and printing activities handled by Founder Electronics based in Beijing, supplying Chinese character page layout software, security and packaging design and pre-press software, workflow solutions, RIPs, computer to plate systems (the Carving Dragon brand) and several inkjet systems. Larry Yang is the President of Founder Electronics and DL&P spoke with him at the China Print exhibition.
Inkjet opportunity
The group came into being following research at the Beijing University on digitising the bitmaps of Chinese characters using computers with limited memory. This opened up computerising Chinese typesetting in newspapers and then into software for commercial and packaging printing workflows. It is enjoying success throughout South Asia with its pre-press and workflow applications.
Founder has the ElecRoc 5 pre-press and workflow system, a native PDF application that uses JDF to automate many production functions and other functions, including ink savings and 3D previewing. It offers full security and anti-counterfeit software, with some features included into is pre-press software.
For packaging, it sells the PaSharp suite, a very powerful fully featured system. It is an Illustrator plug-in that can be used as a stand-alone application or integrated into full production systems with output to film, plate or digital press. It has a good step and repeat capability for sheet or web, while the trapping controls are powerful with the white underprint supporting gradation and transparent or semi-transparent controls. There is the facility to expand or narrow the uneven strokes of fonts in a specified direction. Job parameters can be set up and applied to particular presses. Anamorphic distortion control for circular, conic and complex grid warp functions are built in. There is full pre-flighting and the useful file comparison feature allows operators to examine changes made to files.
As well as its own products, Founder sells and supports HP Indigo and Canon Océ digital presses in China. It has identified inkjet as a significant opportunity and holds a variety of inkjet patents as the sector becomes a growing market. It sells three categories of printers under the Eagle Jet brand, the H, L and P series. The H models are for overprinting codes and numbers, while the L series is for narrow web labels and the high speed P series for documents and publishing. Founder does not make heads or ink, but has success in nozzle control and cleaning technology, recycling ink supply control and LED curing. It also levers its expertise of Chinese typography and workflow with front end workflow systems and controllers.
The H series prints mono information and barcodes with the H300/H500 models having found a successful niche in printing the required codes onto pharmaceutical packs for the Chinese market as demanded by legislation. This is a mono UV print head with a resolution up to 510×612 dpi at speeds of 100 m/min that can be mounted over filling lines or stand-alone systems with transport. The company provides the ‘Drug Supervision Inkjet Printing System’ package, which includes the front head controller to work in accordance with the legal requirements under strict quality assurance. There is optional camera verification and full reporting, and systems are widely used by leading drug package printing companies with some 200 installations, accounting for over 50% of the Chinese market with sales into Russia, Korea and Italy.
Looking to export
The Eagle Jet L modular series of label inkjet presses uses the Xaar 1001 piezo heads and UV inks made by a partner ink company. There is LED pinning and full curing in roll to roll configurations for paper, films and plastic substrates. It has six colour stations including white, with Founder providing the front end. There is full self cleaning and an optional head cleaning kit. It is promoted as a press for labels, identification and security printing with sophisticated software offering added value features. The standard models are available in four or five colours (there are six stations in total), with print widths of either 140 or 210 mm running at 25 m/min as standard, with special options up to 420 mm wide. The press is supplied with Founder’s front end providing typesetting in Chinese and Latin languages, variable data, colour management and control as well as full PDF support.
There are installations in China and the company is looking at export as a market opportunity. Mr Yang outlined the competitive advantage of the press as a combination of productivity and quality at a very attractive price level. The front end has full variable data capability and several innovative applications. It generates numbering and QR codes, with a clever twist of generating coloured number arrays. One application is for Nokia phone batteries. There are variable QR codes printed onto the label with a matrix of numbers reflecting the code printed in varying colours. When the QR code is read (and Founder provides the back-end application software), the colour coding adding a further level of sophisticated anti-counterfeit functionality.
The front end provides full ink usage statistics and monitor press performance in real time. Founder provides optional post-printing equipment and online image verification. It features correction procedure in the event of a nozzle failure with automatic clean and maintenance system. It also sells sheetfed versions of the press up to 700mm wide, used in ceramics and with the potential for cartons.
Founder is very strong domestically with some 500 software engineers to develop solutions that compete with the leading international companies. This requires significant resources and it is looking to set up relationships with strong partners, identifying Europe and North America as important potential markets. Mr Yang said the inkjet equipment offers a very good price/performance ratio with equipment and consumables priced significantly below similar Western and Japanese equivalents. If it succeeds in finding the right partners to broaden its market reach, Founder Electronics certainly has the products and support resources to become a very significant player in digital labels and potentially packaging.
