The business connection between MICA EXPRESS and KBA-Metronic startet with a Universys: With this flexible "All-in-One"-system MICA EXPRESS is personalizing telephone cards. A core business there is the production of pre-paid scratch-off cards. The reliability of the Universys, the intelligent features and the contact to the professionals of KBA-Metronic have convinced: MICA EXPRESS has now also decided for the offset print-technology of KBA-Metronic and installed a Genius 52UV.

The specialists von MICA EXPRESS print on all sorts of plastic such as PVC, ABS and Polypaper as well as coated paper and carton. For example all kinds of calendar, high-quality booklets, posters and menus. Lenticular lenses are an additional niche. This material is very costly, where the Genius 52UV pays off very quickly with it’s low waste production and fully automatic plate change.

MICA EXPRESS has discovered the mentioned markets as an interesting and profitable niche and has dedicated itself towards quality demanding customers. Thanks to its excellent print quality and the high efficiency Genius 52UV is of tremendous support in the companies strive for this goal.

“The Genius 52UV offers us cost-effective printing on a large numbers of substrates, including plastic, lenticular foils, cardboard, and paper in the popular 36 x 52 cm format gives MICA EXPRESS a variety of options,” states Jorge Carrasco. His brother Fernando adds that “The minimal cleaning effort in comparison with conventional offset printing machines also raises our productivity as well as it reducing printing costs for small and medium-sized print runs.”

“A company like MICA EXPRESS with 160 employees which offers a full range of services, from pre-press and printing right through to finishing needs to operate flexible, cost efficient and at highest quality standards”, the owners Jorge and Fernando Carrasco are reasoning their investment. The Genius 52UV is an effective way of ensuring that our company can continue to offer brilliant UV offset print quality while meeting specific customer preferences with short turnaround times.”

The Genius 52UV works on the waterless offset printing method with UV-drying inks. The five printing units make a four colour print and spotcolor or alternatively with varnish. The printer can produce, based on the patented short-ink printing unit and due to the short preparation time and the low start-up waste, photo realistic production runs of high quality up to 8,000 sheets/hour. The printing units are positioned like a fan around a central counter pressure cylinder. Every sheet is printed register-true in one gripper closure without hand over. Each print unit disposes of a doctor blade chamber system, anilox roller and without zone screws. Because the screen roller, inking roller, plate cylinder and rubber blanket cylinder all have identical diameters, there is no ghosting. Adjusting of inking rollers is no longer required.

The automatic plate infeed, the setting of longitudinal and circumferential register from the operating console permits an operator to do a job change in approximately seven minutes at a four color machine. The inking unit and plate cylinder temperature control ensures constant printing conditions at different print volumes and also for repeating jobs.

Another business field of MICA EXPRESS is the personalization of individual cards. The demands which are made to the functionality of the individual cards are highly different. MICA EXPRESS uses the modular processing system Universys for this task, also made by KBA-Metronic. The Universys is a fully automatic personalization system for cards. The standard configuration consisting of infeed module, ink jet printing module, rotation module, hot stamping module, outfeed module and moreover makes the system possible for markings in the portrait and landscape mode. This System is only an example of the modularity of Universys, mag stripe, high resolution-inkjet-systems and the high speed rotating hot-stamper are also available and fulfill all market needs. The optional cameras and a labelling system offer the highest production safety. The Universys guarantees safe production and offers flexible solutions for individual amounts of order by their dynamic adaptability. Keep in mind, that the code number is equal to money. It must be secured, that the machine operator has no access to the code numbers. This is warranted by the Universys.

ABS, PVC, PET, PVC and also paper in strengths of .25 - .80 mm can be processed to card materials. For example on the Universys you can produce prepaid telephone cards with scratch off fields as well as bonus cards and store cards. This allows an enterprise to offer a flexible, dynamic inline finition at highest security level for all requirements in conformity with the market.

The latest version of the Universys produces up to 14.200 cards per hour. Overall the Universys convinces with its very good price/performance ratio.

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