Since 1998, Heinz Glas’ engineers have been working, among other things, on "environmentally friendly" water based paint technology which will turn out to be a major strategic tool as of the early 2000s.
They were also working on developing new finishing techniques, different from screen printing or hot stamping to decorate a bottle in all its facets and regardless of its shape. They were convinced that pad printing was the future technology and that it could meet wildest demands...
Pad printing and robotics
And they were right! In the same breath engineers managed to develop the use of precious metal inks (gold and platinum). As a consequence, the glassmaker is actually capable of applying on any part of a bottle, a full colour image, or gold or platinum. Robotics also takes a part with the creation of a team of several persons specially dedicated to this task. And among other advantages, surfaces to decorate can be optimized (and which is new, also in the perfume industry for precious metals), automation helps keep up with high production rates and the thinness of ink layers helps reducing quantities of consumables.
In addition to pad printing, managers at Heinz Glas also decided to invest significantly in vacuum metallization. But not just any kind of vacuum metallization: the choice in size and performance of vacuum bells were subject to a great deal of attention as always, with such catchwords as, “production rate, flexibility, quality and innovation (translucent and/or graded metallization).”
Global amount of investments in ten years for this decoration section 15 million euros!
