Fort Dearborn, a custom label and packaging company with twenty locations nationwide has reached nearly 82 million impressions on its Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 106-8+L in 2020.
Fort Worth location of Fort Dearborn is equipped with two Speedmaster XL 105s and one other XL 106 in addition to its world-record press, which was installed in July of 2019.
In comparison to similar machines in the market, the XL 106 at Fort Dearborn produced more than 2.5x the number of annual gross impressions than the industry average of 32 million. Fort Dearborn credits its record-breaking performance to the overwhelmingly advanced technology of the press, its increased business in 2020, and its overall plant strategy and teamwork mentality.
The General Manager of the Fort Worth plant, Bob Zeisler said “When we installed our newest XL 106, it almost doubled the horsepower of the older press we replaced. Without it, we would have never been able to keep up with the increased demand in our business during 2020.”
‘’In addition to the increased speeds of the press, which runs 24/7 at 18,000 sheets per hour, the XL 106 is equipped with advanced, efficiency boosting technology like CutStar, Heidelberg’s inline roll-to-sheet device, and Inpress Control, the industry-leading inline spectrophotometer that measures and controls color and register on the fly at any speed’’.
He added that Inpress Control enables swift changeovers between label jobs, and according to Zeisler, “No other manufacturer comes close to the accuracy and speed of Inpress Control. It’s an absolute gamechanger in our business.”
“This strategy really increased the total output of the entire facility,”
“To be successful with it, it’s an entire team effort that starts with the scheduler. Without this plan in place, I’m not sure we would have been able to hold up to pressure of last year, let alone achieve this record accomplishment.”
Fort Dearborn also credits the Heidelberg team for helping make its own team successful. In addition to the “best in class” training its operators received on both of its XL 106s, Fort Dearborn also had monthly tracking calls with Heidelberg Performance Advisors during the first twelve months after installation.
