MACHINES Not the ritual celebration of an anniversary, but the occasion to celebrate an interesting growth from a small family business to "small multinational " that sells printing and converting machines worldwide. Without forgetting its origins.
As of February 1st, 2013 the company has entered its 50th year of activity and does not intend missing the opportunity to celebrate. Starting with the opportunities offered by the fairs (many in 2013), where aside its technology, the company will bear witness to its history and leading positions conquered on international markets for its tissue machines, narrow web and medium web printing.
Things started in March with the Tissue World in Barcelona and will carry on in May with Converflex, where Omet will also be organizing an open house and gala dinner involving its large international packaging & printing clients. In May they plan an event to present the company’s monograph “Omet 50 years of Passion and Excellence" to the sector press and opinion leaders, and in June the company has decided to take part (as promoters) at "It's Tissue": a week of lectures, moments of fun with the twelve main Italian tissue concerns opening their gates. Ending on the up they will be at Labelexpo Europe, where Omet promises to show up in "a new cladding of great impact", to end the year as it started it, with a family celebration, dedicated to the employees of the group: at the beginning of 2013 a photo contest was held, in June they will be holding a sporting event, also open to employees’ family members, and in December, as tradition has it, Christmas dinner. The Lombard multinational’s link with the territory is in fact alive and keenly felt, and this is shown, among other things, by the latest undertakings of social responsibility to support the training of future generations. The list is long and includes the assignment of academic merit scholarships for employees’s children; collaboration with the Milan Polytechnic University and the Italian Institute of Technology with the offer of internships; local sponsoring (of the Badoni foundation that promotes relations between school and concerns, for example) and the donation for improving the technological equipment of the city of Lecco’s teaching establishments. Last in order of time, the partnership with M3, the proposed Master in Marketing Management from University of Milan Bicocca, CRIET and Confindustria, which Omet will support with internships, scholarship awards, testimonials and case histories.
The renovated facilities – For its fiftieth Omet has also made itself a gift: the improvement and strengthening of its manufacturing structure. The company unveiled the new O-Pac works, that will host the company in the group which produces wet wipes, having transferred the Systems in Motion unit to Valmadrera, near Lecco, to a larger more modern complex. With regard to the Machinery Division, it has been split between two facilities: one regarding printing presses that has remained the present site of Via Polvara, while the tissue sector moved in late 2012 to Omet’s historical site, also in Lecco, completely renovated and equipped with a new highly powerful photovoltaic system. Here the Technology Center, "nerve center" of Omet’s activity on the packaging and labels markets, is also undergoing renovation.
The relaunch is global – In addition to its headquarters in Lecco and distributors that serve the different countries of the world, Omet has subsidiaries in Latin America, the United States and China. It is here, in Omet Suzhou Mechanical Co. Ltd, where the latest structural investment has been made, to set up a technology center for printing machines available for demonstrations. The site, that permanently employs two Italian trained engineers, covers an area of about 200 square meters and currently has a XFlex X2 370 (already sold to Yanfeng Plastic Packing Co. Ltd.), a XFlex X4 370 12-color, 2 silk-screen, 2 cold foil and 2 rewinders, already examined by the local operators in the course of the open house organized in recent months. Omet is also growing on the eastern markets closer to home, like in Poland, where she has just installed the company’s first printing press with sleeve offset technology at Masterpress. To be precise, it is a 430 mm web width XFlex X6 in 10 colors, with 5 offset sleeve units, 5 UV flexo units, a cold foil unit, a die cutting press and the Vision-1 automatic control registry system. Masterpress, that already owns five Omet machines, is using it for printing top end heatshrink and inmould labels, mainly for the food sector.
Progress in research – Presented for the first time during the last Labelexpo 2011, the Omet offset sleeve unit has become an integral part of the package of combined technologies that typifies the Lombard concern’s offer. The company’s commitment to R&D and its ability to listen to the market are telling. «Masterpress was looking for an in line offset that printed excellently and was quick and easy to manage – testifies Marco Calcagni, Omet sales and marketing director – and was so happy with the results of our solution that they have already ordered a new 670 mm range machine».
The unit in question offers many advantages to the user, starting from the extension of the range of sizes with a 1/48 inch increase in stroke and by the easy workchange; what is more, the use of the sleeve minimizes storage space and the problem of moving heavy equipment. On a strictly technical level, this system can boast an abundance of new features: anti-ghosting systems, absolute rigidity and absence of moving parts to avoid unnecessary vibration, print adjustments made outside the unit, maximum speed (up to 200 m/min), size range from 14 to 25 inches, pneumatic clamping sleeves directly on the machine (like with flexo technology) automatic register and pre-register control (lengthwise and crossways), motorised inkwells and an automatic wetting system, an automatic pressure control and more performant temperature and tensioning controls. Groundbreaking developments that are now even being integrated on Omet’s multi-process and platform machines, up to reaching the web width of 850 mm of the Varyflex V2 for the printing of flexible packaging.
