Chris Dillon and Michael Dillon, alongside one of the three presses that have been upgraded to run UV LED curing.

Sustainability focus means business for Meyers

ArcLED technology enables Minneapolis label and packaging printer to achieve sustainability goals and win business, while transitioning to UV LED at a regulated pace.

About Meyers

Sustainability is more than just a buzzword at Meyers. It is fundamental to the company and at the heart of its business strategy. Best practice is followed at every level, and not just for the usual reasons… Meyers’ customers include several global megabrands, who place business based on a supplier’s carefully measured sustainability credentials. Simply speaking, responsible business wins business.

Based in Minneapolis, Meyers print packaging and labels for several major brands in health and beauty, food and beverage.
Based in Minneapolis, Meyers print packaging and labels for several major brands in health and beauty, food and beverage.

Chris Dillon is President & CEO at the Minneapolis-based packaging and label printer. He begins with a brief company history: “Meyers was purchased by my grandfather in 1949 and it was just a very small company at the time, a few employees, a few local customers, and we’ve enjoyed really steady growth over the years. Our growth focus is really primarily in the health and beauty, food and beverage segments. 

“We transitioned from being just a general commercial printer to really focusing on larger brands, point of sale displays and signage, and growing in packaging which includes labels, folding cartons and even some corrugate packaging.”

Sustainability leads to LED

Meyers’ commitment to sustainability led them to make the bold move of converting all three of their main production lines to run UV LED curing, simultaneously. However, it was imperative that they could continue to selectively use conventional UV Arc curing where necessary, and this was one of several reasons why they chose to work with GEW for the UV system retrofits.

Chris Dillon and Michael Dillon, alongside one of the three presses that have been upgraded to run UV LED curing.
Chris Dillon and Michael Dillon, alongside one of the three presses that have been upgraded to run UV LED curing.

Dave McConnon, Chief Operating Officer at Meyers, describes the background: “We started UV curing right around the year 2000. Prior to GEW we did have other UV curing systems and since have replaced them all with GEW. Curing at times became a limiting factor for us and we wanted to be able to run our flexo presses faster, we also were looking for some energy savings.

“We knew we needed to switch to newer systems because our older systems were ageing and it was just time to move to new systems, so we switched our main three production lines to LED all at the same time, for a few reasons… first of all, we had been testing LED inks for a number of years and knew that the ink technology was there. Secondly, we run a lot of our work interchangeably between all three of those machines and we wanted the ability to have identical capability between the machines, so that we could move work back and forth knowing that we would be using the same technology.”

Why Meyers chose GEW

Meyers use GEW UV Arc and LED lamp cassettes interchangeably, across all three of their main production lines.
Meyers use GEW UV Arc and LED lamp cassettes interchangeably, across all three of their main production lines.

Having established the need for newer UV curing technology at Meyers, McConnon and his team opted to continue working with GEW, as he explains: “We chose GEW for our LED curing systems for a few reasons… number one, we needed the flexibility to be able to do Arc curing or LED, and the cartridge system that GEW has in place really lends itself perfectly to that. Number two, we had a long history with GEW, we installed our first system in 2008. We came to know the people well and the service well and that gave us comfort.”

The outcome is that Meyers now use a combination of AeroLED and LeoLED lampheads alongside E2C Arc lamps where necessary, on multiple machines across the shop floor. GEW’s patented, interchangeable ‘ArcLED’ technology makes this possible, as each print station can be changed to run either UV LED or UV Arc according to the job in hand.

The transition to UV LED inks

McConnon also points to the ease of transition to LED-curable inks: “Switching from standard inks to LED inks we actually switched to a dual cure system about a year and a half before, so we got used to running the ink system before we actually got the LED curing in-house. We really didn’t notice any difference in the density, nor in our anilox choices, it really was just a drop in replacement essentially. We generally use the LED systems for the pigmented inks and Arc cassettes for curing adhesives, varnishes and those types of things. We do have a few projects where customers have qualified UV technology for their inks and we’ll use the E2C cassettes for those projects as well… we use them quite interchangeably with the LED systems.”

Managing qualifications with Arc and LED

The flexibility to interchange every print station enables Meyers to manage customer qualifications at a regulated pace.
The flexibility to interchange every print station enables Meyers to manage customer qualifications at a regulated pace.

The matter of qualification was another key reason why McConnon needed to be able to run conventional Arc curing alongside LED: it enables Meyers’ production team to manage multiple customer qualification processes at their own regulated pace, rather than switching every job to LED at the same time. This flexibility allows them a manageable timescale for products to be qualified without jeopardising production, as McConnon explains: “The interchangeability between LED and Arc cassettes, you know, absolutely pushed things along for us and probably moved us into LED sooner than we would have, had that technology not been available. Again, we have some customers that require Arc cured ink still, and their qualification schedules are quite long, so we would have had to have tested and gotten those approved before we moved to LED, had it not been for the ability to change back and forth with the GEW system.

“To be able to switch between LED and Arc curing gives us, you know, all kinds of flexibility both for our current customer base as well as any future projects that we run into.”

Process reliability

He concludes with a comment on the reliability of the new technology: “The LED curing systems are living up to our expectations in terms of getting the speed output that we were expecting, it also reduced our maintenance time significantly. They just run. It’s something I don’t hear about and if it doesn’t make its way to my level that means it’s not a problem, so we’ve been very happy with the reliability and the way the systems have been running.”

Sustainability focus

Michael Dillon is passionate about sustainability, and highlights how responsible business means new business for Meyers.
Michael Dillon is passionate about sustainability, and highlights how responsible business means new business for Meyers.

Chris Dillon highlights how Meyers’ adoption of new technology is part of the broader development of the company: “We’re in the third generation of Meyers ownership and we’ve been doing a lot internally to modernise our workflows and be as competitive as we possibly can, and sustainability has been another huge focus for the third generation ownership.”

This focus on sustainability is passionately described by his business partner and cousin, Michael Dillon, who is Chief Revenue Officer for the company: “One of our main focuses is on reducing our carbon footprint, and what we do about that is making sure that we’re limiting the amount of resources that we’re using, and then when we are using resources, we’re using them, you know, responsibly. So we are large electricity consumers and so when we look at how we’re going to do that responsibly, we want to make sure that we’re using the latest and greatest technology, right? And one of those things is LED curing, so to make the same amount of product, we can do that while using a lot less electricity.”

Responsible business wins business

Meyers has transitioned from general commercial print and has grown in packaging, including labels and folding cartons.
Meyers has transitioned from general commercial print and has grown in packaging, including labels and folding cartons.

He continues: “What matters most to our sustainability conscious clients is what our footprint is, because our footprint is their footprint. Clients want to know, what is the impact that we’re having, and they’re taking that into consideration while they’re picking vendors and while they’re allocating costs, a lot of them are offsetting the impact of their supply chain, so the impact that we’re having matters to them. So when we use fewer resources, that has a tangible benefit.

“They look at what’s called Scopes One, Two and Three emissions. Scope One is what happens at your facility. Scope Two is what happens to get the utilities that you use to you, so if you’re using electricity generated from coal you’ll have a much larger Scope Two than if you’re using electricity generated from wind and solar. Scope Three is what happens upstream and downstream from your own operations, so that would be for us what goes into growing trees that get harvested to become paper, and then what happens after it leaves here. So for us that’s shipping our product, it’s end of life, right… so is your product being recycled?”

Here he gets to the crux of the matter and explains how Meyers’ sustainability credentials have a clear and direct effect on their ability to win new business: “One of our large leading customers, a giant household name, does award business based on the sustainability of their suppliers. They actually calculate the cost of the impact of everything that they source, and that cost of offsetting that environmental impact gets levied upon the department that’s buying the supplies. There’s literally a one-to-one relationship on the impact that you’re having on the environment and the cost that they view of buying from you as a supplier.

“It literally makes us lower cost than the alternative suppliers that aren’t as focused on sustainability.”

The right move?

Dave McConnon sums up with his thoughts on the move to LED: “We’ve been very happy with the way our LED installations have gone, as well as the results we’ve gotten since switching to LED inks, we spent a lot of time testing up front to make sure that it works on our substrates, for our subject matter, with our aniloxes, and a number of other things. So for anybody thinking about going into LED, you know, I think it’s time.”

The Meyers case study video

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Find out more about GEW’s water-cooled UV LED curing system, LeoLED2, here.

To learn more about AeroLED2, GEW’s air-cooled UV LED curing system for label and narrow web presses up to 70cm, go here.

To learn more about Meyers, visit their website at: www.meyers.com