A smart move to partner with Martin Automatic Mr. Liu Jianfeng - Deputy Minister of Goldrock Printing, Equipment Division

Posted: June 13, 2014

In recent years, China's tobacco industry has undergone tremendous changes, posing challenges not only for the tobacco companies but also for cigarette package printing companies. To meet the demands for improved print quality and production efficiency, cigarette package printers are making necessary equipment upgrades and additions. With the competition between cigarette packaging printing companies growing increasingly fierce, package printers such as industry leader Goldrock Printing have turned to high-performance equipment to stand out from the competition.

Goldrock Printing has many pieces of world-class printing equipment and actively cooperates with well-known global equipment manufacturers to constantly update their existing equipment. For example, Goldrock recently worked with Martin Automatic from the United States to install a non-stop RMAP automatic rewinder. Martin Automatic is a 45-year-old company known for automatic splicers and rewinders and considered experts in this arena. In the most recent project, Martin successfully integrated an automatic rewinder into Goldrock's existing Bobst gravure press production line at their factory in Hunan province. Liu Jianfeng, Deputy Minister of Goldrock's Printing Equipment Division, discusses his experience with the Martin rewinder project.

Founded nearly 18 years ago, Goldrock Printing seized on the rapid development of China's tobacco industry and grew from a single gravure printing process with specialty finishing into one of the largest, most modern factories in China. Goldrock now ranks in the top 10 of China's printing industry, as well as one of the three largest cigarette package printing companies. The company has won numerous awards for package printing and industry efficiency.

In the face of such impressive achievements, Liu Jianfeng humbly says, "We were able to achieve these accomplishments mainly by virtue of 'Lotus King' cigarettes. Goldrock is a relatively stable, high-volume printing business. However, in order to meet the growing market demand, we also need to continue to introduce new equipment and new technology."

"Because the company's product output continues to increase, the production process needs to be ever changing. We had an urgent need to install a non-stop rewinder on our gravure printing equipment," says Mr. Liu. "After carefully researching the market, we learned that Martin Automatic's RMAP non-stop rewinding machine was not only the right price, but the performance was superior. Martin has extensive experience in manufacturing non-stop unwinding and rewinding equipment, which added to our confidence."

"Stable performance with good service-We look forward to future joint projects."

"Simple operation, high reliability, and low failure rate," is how Mr. Liu describes the RMAP non-stop rewinder. "The RMAP is not only simple to operate, it requires minimal operator skills, and there is basically no maintenance. In fact, in nearly 2 years of operation, the RMAP has never had a single failure. Both roll-changing and tension control performance is incredibly stable." Mr. Liu also notes that the roll-enclosed design of the RMAP makes for very safe operation.

In addition to the RMAP's excellent performance, Mr. Liu credits Martin with good customer service. As an example, he states: "After installing the RMAP, we found some differences with this new machine than with our usual operating practices. It is fully automatic, requiring only core loading by the operator, but for us, sometimes manual intervention is necessary. Consequently, we made ??a request to Martin. After we communicated our needs, Martin's in-house controls engineers modified the program to comply with our request. We are very satisfied with Martin for providing such thorough services."

With this type of high performance and high quality support, Mr. Liu concludes, "Choosing Martin was the smart move for Goldrock Printing, and we look forward to future projects with Martin Automatic."

David Ho, general manager of the Martin's Asia Pacific team, says, "We are very grateful to Goldrock Printing for the recognition and support of Martin and to all the friends that helped us during the sales and installation process. We believe that the partnership between Martin and Goldrock Printing has just taken the first step, and we hope that it lasts for many years to come."