The Turkish group TCE is making a leap forward in the design and construction of flexo printing machines, both gearless and stack, and is planning further development starting from its new Italian plant. Interview with CEO Zümran Yerlikaya.
TCE Converting has leveraged its 36-year experience to develop a cutting-edge offering of both standard and specialized machinery for flexible packaging and related sectors.
Focusing on high-quality production, innovative engineering, advanced technology, and first-class service, the Turkish manufacturer has expanded its global reach and recently opened a new TCE Printing plant in Verona, Italy, where the group’s state-of-theart flexo printing equipment will be produced. CEO Zümran Yerlikaya explains how and why.
ZÜMRAN
YERLIKAYA
CEO di TCE Group
Ms. Yerlikaya, TCE Printing’s arrival in Italy has caused a stir. What are your market analyses, production plan, and commercial objectives for your company?
TCE Group is planning on producing ZEUS 08X CI Gearless Flexo Press and Nextack 8C Stack Flexo press on our new plant in Italy. These models, with their compact design, will replace the old and cumbersome machines in establishments and provide improvements from the quality of the printing to energy savings.
What are the strengths of TCE’s product and service offering? How has it positioned itself, and what are its main competitive levers?
Our group has in the recent years invested in mechanical part production in-house and their quality/production speed. Therefore while other companies might be outsourcing these parts, we produce them in-house to our needs.
What share of TCE’s offering do flexographic printing machines occupy?
Flexo printing machines occupy about 80% of our catalogue, with the rest going to Lamination and Slitting machines.
What is the current state of the art in TCE flexo printing? What components do you use?
Our newest improvement is, by the addition of a downstream unit to the back of the machine which are equipped by interchangeable trolley units, therefore it can swap between Roto and Flexo unit modes. On the side of the components, we have sleeve technology for anilox and plates, Gearless technology for printing pressure and register settings, 100% inspection and interactive register control for the Inspection, Infrared sensors and Air- Recirculation for energy savings.
What type of inks do you favor? How do you address solvent management?
We work with both solvent and water based inks, the decision is made by the Customers. Using the software on our machine we integrate our customers’ Solvent Recovery System to our machines.
And what drying/polymerization technologies do you use?
We have 3 different drying systems. We can get up to 40% energy savings on the Air-Recirculation system using the Diathermic oil method. This percentage goes down to 10% on Gas Burner and Electric Battery methods. And very rarely we use Steam Drying.
Are new paper- and plastic-based substrates currently challenging machine manufacturers? How?
We can adapt components for different surface conditions to our machines. For Paper and Plastic surfaces we use pre-print Web-Cleaning and Corona Treatment to create the appropriate surface for printing.
What are the main areas where R&D is planning new advancements? To meet what market challenges and needs?
We have R&D working on conversion from solvent-based inks to water-based inks to reduce impact to the environment. On paper surfaces, water based inks are getting good results and therefore are spreading in use in these latest years. However plastic surfaces demand improvement and research on the machines if they are to use Water-based inks on them. At the same we are R&D’ing a printing machine with UV LED drying technology.
