After purchasing the Durst Tau 330 label printer Druckmaus has established itself as an online printer of quality products in small batches. and now they plan to double: both colors machines
«During an open day at the end of 2014, the Puhl brothers examined the new Durst Tau 330 color printer for labels. A few weeks having passed, they came to Bressanone Demo Center with prototypes and soon after that they bought their machine». These the words of Helmuth Munter, Segment Manager Labels & Package Printing at Durst Phototechnik AG of Bressanone. Who comments, «It was indeed a very quick decision, even for one of our best-selling machines, both in the larger Tau 330 and the smaller Tau 150 version».
Forward-looking and fast
Here the speed of the decision is due to the evident quality, productivity and reliability of the Durst technology, but also the willingness of the two Austrian entrepreneurs to welcome what is new. Thirty years ago the Puhl brothers founded their company – an offset printing shop – based solely on desktop publishing (DTP), a futuristic concept for the time. And when, at the beginning of the new millennium, the crisis of offset printing presses became more and more evident, they began looking for a profitable niche market, and they found it in small format digital label printing. This is how Druckmaus.com came into being and how it built up what now stands as their core business.
Quality: problem and solution
Druckmaus.com provides round, oval or square labels in 44 standard sizes or with custom contour in rolls. However, print quality and productivity were never fully satisfactory until they installed the Durst printer in March 2015. «With a resolution of 720 x 1,260 dpi, the Tau is ideal for producing small labels with photographic quality, which for us constitute about 95% of orders», says Wolfgang Puhl. Who states: «as well as ensuring the aesthetic result desired, it allows you to also make the extremely small print of a list of ingredients readable. And I assure you this is no mean thing: you just need the slightest fault in a nozzle to ruin a label of a few square centimeters».
Handling short runs
The typical customer of the Austrian label works – from 20 to 300 per day – put in orders of around one hundred euros several times a year, a situation which few companies are able to manage.
In Druckmaus.com the print data is uploaded to their site directly from the companies that place the orders, or via small graphics centers, in the form of PDF files ready for printing or, more rarely, JPG files. After a control, the job is sent to the print queue, for which the Durst Tau 330 uses the Esko-Artwork software.
«We use six standard media in PP and paper – explains Wolfgang Pohl – from gold to silver to bright red and transparent, if required finished with a protective surface. Usually they are packed in dispensers (even with the 76 mm core), sent by DHL and delivered within eight days».
With this type of organization, the structure of the company stays streamlined but «Since we have been using the Tau 330 – states Peter Puhl – the market has been giving us continuous feedback for improving print quality».
Lower costs, more productivity
The Tau 330 installed in Druckmaus.com uses four-color UV inks, which are supplied in cans and are paid by the litre. As Peter Puhl comments – «this helps monitor consumption and, consequently the related costs, this makes it easier to responsibilize the operator, also offering obvious benefits for the environment.
But aboveall, the Tau 330 is much faster than the previous machine. It works with ten heads per color, using patented single pass Durst technology, with drops of variable size while giving a good gray scale reproduction, on large substrates up to 330 mm».
With this performance the printer reaches 48 m/min and, installing a coating machine offering a similar performance, Druckmaus.com has been able to exceed the threshold of 30 meters and reduce the work shifts at the same time. Now it is planning to purchase its second Tau 330 while empoweringthe one already in operation, bringing the colors from 4 to 7 (with the addition of white, violet and orange) and equipping itself to use jumbo-rolls.
