That begins with production of the adhesive material – the “raw material” behind every label. The 100-metre-long coating facility and a nearly 30-metre-high interim warehouse for raw materials and finished products form virtually a single unit. The interim warehouse supplies paper or film rolls directly to the coating facility via a special conveyor system with automated grippers. Similar grippers also take the finished adhesive-coated rolls and return them to the warehouse.
HERMA has virtually done away with the need for the forklift trucks that used to drive around transporting rolls of paper, film or adhesive materials. And that is a huge advantage, because here, HERMA manufactures rolls that can weigh up to five tonnes and are up to two metres wide. They call for extremely careful handling, if only for the value they represent. But when transport pathways are managed manually, there is always a risk of damage.
Later, the adhesive material travels over bridges and subterranean pathways to the area where the rolls are transformed into labels – on A4 sheets, for example. On a processing line developed by HERMA, a roll of adhesive material goes in at one end and at the other end out come packing boxes, each containing ready-filled packs. The web of adhesive material is also stamped and cut into the respective formats. The sheets are then sorted into batches and sent to the packaging module – all on one single, contiguous machine. This is known as “inline processing” in the jargon of the trade.
The speed and productivity rate of this process at HERMA are probably unmatched in this sector anywhere in Germany.
