GEW is well-established in labels and narrow web, where it has a market-leading position, and has been targeting the sheetfed market since 2018.
Robert Rae (pictured below left), managing director of sales at the Crawley headquartered company, said the partnership came about after RMGT’s distributors began fitting GEW UV LED systems, which brought the firm to the manufacturer’s attention.
“After 18 months or so, RMGT Japan took interest as they were looking for alternative UV LED suppliers. We met RMGT in Japan a number of times and installed test systems there in 2019/2020 for testing,” he explained.
When the Covid-19 pandemic put paid to international travel, GEW’s established remote monitoring system came to the fore.
“Our last face-to-face was obviously early 2020 but through our remote monitoring system, which logs all parameters of the UV system every 10 seconds, GEW has been able to help RMGT understand and test the UV system remotely,” Rae added.
“In addition, because of our modular lamp array concept, they could easily test the lamps in different positions and configurations to simulate different press setups. Without our remote monitoring system it would have been extremely difficult.”
Rae said GEW had shipped its IoT remote monitoring tech “on every single UV system since 2015” with more than 20,000 UV units monitored and recorded 24/7 using the system.
“It has been invaluable during the pandemic – we have even done retrofit LED installations on sheetfed machines direct with printers in remote locations without ever attending site,” he added.
The terms of the RMGT deal were not disclosed.
RMGT president Katsushi Hirokawa (pictured above right) said the firm was “committed to building relationships of trust with customers, peripheral device manufacturers and all others involved in the industry”.
“We continually work with our partners to refine and perfect technologies, and to bring innovative new products to the world of printing. Inspired by this corporate philosophy, we have pioneered LED UV and it is our in-depth experience and knowledge of this technology that has enabled us to make a sound judgment about our future UV curing partner.”
RMGT had previously used Panasonic systems.
GEW’s compact LeoLED system was introduced in 2019. Rae said the system’s Modular Lamp Array (MLA) concept had appealed to RMGT because it was both reliable and flexible.
“In a sheetfed environment, GEW’s MLA allows any number of lamps to be positioned and quickly moved anywhere throughout the press. This means the same LeoLED product can be used for low, medium and high-performance applications but arranged in single, double or triple MLA configuration dependent upon the application and speed requirements – always guaranteeing performance,” he stated.
GEW appointed Gary Doman as international sales manager for sheetfed in the autumn of 2018. He noted that the ability to move lamps around on the press was “a huge advantage”, for a variety of end uses.
He said: “GEW lamps are designed with this in mind and users can easily move lamps from the delivery to any interdeck position and back again. For coatings and other more demanding applications, the MLA is used and offers more power, exactly where and when it is needed.”
RMGT presses are distributed in the UK by Surrey-based M Partners.
Managing director Murray Lock said the fresh partnership between RMGT and GEW was “a great result” and testament to the efficacy of GEW’s systems.
“It’s great to be dealing with a UK manufacturer. We are finding GEW really hands on and really flexible. They are very good people to deal with.”
GEW manufactures LED UV and Arc curing systems at its UK base, and also has subsidiaries in the USA and Germany.
