Mouvent Cluster: Opening a new chapter for label production

BOBST Digital Printing – Scaling up the Business – a true story which will shape the future of the label world.

BOBST Mouvent Cluster Technology combines high quality with high speed at levels never achieved before. Know how in a single 8-hour shift with just 1 operator, a total of 21 wide-ranging jobs were easily achieved. In total, 13 x 2,000-meter rolls were used, totaling 26 kilometers of substrates and delivering nearly 1.3 million labels.

It all started with a clear vision and firm convictions. In printing and converting machinery, the best products are the ones with the least number of moving parts – the best industrial design has the simplest architecture and enables an evolution of technology. Based on these principles and after four years, the Bobst Group is ready to open a new chapter in the label industry delivering quality, productivity and the best economics with no trade-off.

BOBST did not participate in the first digital wave. But then, back in 2017, the digital printing Competence Center of BOBST was created. The intent was to explore and deliver the next innovations to transform packaging production. A new revolutionary Mouvent Cluster has been designed over the last three years and is now deployed in three commercially available digital label presses – the Mouvent LB701-UV, the Mouvent LB702-UV and the BOBST MASTER DM5. It took us three years from the idea to the final product and this was worth the time and investment.

The new solutions will help label converters to address major pain points.

Quality – MouventTM Cluster Technology

BOBST quality is based on:

• 4 Fuji Samba Printheads capable of printing native 1200×1200 dpi up to 100m/min
• State-of-the-art electronic layer driving the million drops per second
• Ink conditioning layer where each individual printhead ink supply is close to the printhead
• Fully automated flow regulation control for each printhead ensuring consistent print at high speeds
• Mechanical layer and individual control of each printhead to ensure best alignment
• In addition, with its oneINSPECTION technology, BOBST offers a unique digital visual control system to ensure that all labels are delivered with the highest and most consistent quality from the first to the last one, for any jobs and with any operator.

Combining quality and productivity

If you are using 4 or 6 colours or if you are using white or special inks, Mouvent Cluster Technology combines high quality with high speed at levels never achieved before. To further support its claim, BOBST conducted a real-life test. In a single 8-hour shift with just 1 operator, it easily achieved a total of 21 separated jobs using 4 to 6 colours (some with white ink) on 4 different substrates (PP, PPE, transparent and metallized). You can see full details of the jobs in this article. In total, 13 x 2,000-meter rolls were used, totaling 26 kilometers of substrates and delivering nearly 1.3 million labels.

Colour Consistency

Colour consistency during job length, job repeats and between different machines and sites, is one of the major challenges in both conventional and digital printing. BOBST oneECG technology utilizes advanced colorimetry technics to analyze and digitize colour information. Digital colour information is stored as reference and recalled during production request. Sophisticated colour algorithms will assign the colour information for up to 6 primary colours delivering up to 85% of the colour gamut with colour uniformity, up to 100 meters a minute. Digital colour information makes repeat jobs easy to manage and colour consistency across the entire job production is guaranteed by manual colour sampling or even with a fully automated visual inspection system for advance production lines. BOBST oneECG is offering a unique colour language that can drive both digital and conventional colour, thus bridging the gap of moving jobs easily between the two printing technologies and enabling seamless brand experience across all BOBST printing platforms.

Inks and white ink

Inks are inherent to digital printing. While we all understand that ink has interactions with the substrate, it has major implications with the print heads, the related electronics and the software required to guarantee color consistency. For decades white printing was almost taboo for digital. There is a perception that white is the flexo premise. This was partially true – the opacity and the cost in digital were indeed not matching expectations for a while. It took some time to deliver a solution and now BOBST delivers white ink at 70% opacity at up to 45 meters a minute and this is a world record in digital printing.

All the Bobst Group inks are a unique formula to deliver the best results but more importantly to ensure the best TCO. The economics of digital printing are a sensitive topic for all converters, and BOBST took the decision to manage it proactively.

TCO

The rise of digital has been accomplished in 3 steps: first, digital had to deliver quality. Then, digital had to meet the expected productivity to compete with conventional technologies. Finally, digital had to deliver the proper TCO to again deliver against customer expectations. BOBST has worked on these 3 elements and is now leading on the 3 categories. Users can load all their short runs and even long ones and will be amazed by the cost savings they can generate on jobs that they would normally put on a flexo press. The new Bobst Group inks are designed for inkjet being a mainstream technology and not for niche applications.

The most complete portfolio

Unlike many suppliers, the Bobst Group can rely on all technologies: Flexo, All-In-One and Digital. Without pushing one technology versus another – BOBST has offered solutions to optimize the entire production floor. The recently announced BOBST MASTER DM5, combining flexo units and the Digital Mouvent Technology print engine, is probably the best label press on the market, delivering all type of labels from the PDF to final rolls. Prime, print, embellish, cut – All-in-One, All-in-Line. It shows that technology will co-exist and that the customer needs will be met using the most appropriate technology.

Sales & Service Organization

To promote their innovative label solutions in an effective manner, BOBST focuses on few countries with a dedicated sales force and the proper service organization. The focus will help clients to embark on the digitalization of mainstream label production.

The Bobst Group has 6 dedicated salespeople in Western Europe and USA. They are also expanding their presence as the demand for label digital printing is growing in RSA, Baltics, Brazil, NZ & Australia.

Besides, four Demonstration Centers: Mex (Switzerland), Barcelona (Spain), Firenze (Italy) and Atlanta (USA) deliver personalized virtual demonstrations on request accommodating customer needs, time zones and languages.

BOBST closed 2020 with more than 20 presses sold. Some customers have multiple presses and are discovering that they can now do things previously not possible.

In 2021 BOBST plans to scale up the business further and believes that they are at the tipping point for a new chapter in the label industry to be written. Offering a wide product portfolio across Flexo, All-in-One and Digital platforms, the Bobst Group is among the leaders in setting standards in speed, quality and costs. With the state-of-the-art technology, BOBST is ‘ready to shape the future of label production’.