Tubular Belles
By Andrew Joseph, Features Editor
Automation Converting Hewlett-Packard Montebello Packaging RotoflexAs for product quality, the company’s commitment to defect-free production can be traced right back to 1952, Bennett asserts, when it began servicing its first clients in the pharmaceutical industry, “We have been making aluminum tubes for the pharmaceutical industry right from the get-go,” Bennett explains, “and we are able to continue doing that work to this day by being in compliance with all the relevant FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) guidelines, as per current Good Manufacturing Practices (cMPG) protocol, and also maintaining all the active Drug Master File documentation.
“Today, our reliable and protective aluminum, laminate and plastic barrier laminate tubes are the preferred choice of packaging for some of the world’s top pharmaceutical makers of creams, gels, ointments, personal-care lubricants and other semi-solids.”
Bennett says that servicing clients in the image-conscious personal-care products industry often presents unique design and production challenges for Montebello, but adds the company really thrives on this sort of higher-end work.
“We fully realize just how difficult it can be to make a product stand out on the shelf,” Bennett states. “To be truly effective in the market, a product really needs to stand out and capture the discerning eye of the buying public, so we are happy to have many well-known personal-care and cosmetic companies rely on what we can bring to the table in meeting their packaging needs.”
Bennett says the company’s clients can distinguish their products from the competition by choosing from either the more durable aluminum tubes or the laminate plastic tubes that utilize the company’s exclusive, highly-decorative M-Deco process—a high-end image transfer technology that employs the new-generation Indigo WS4500 digital printing presses from the Hewlett-Packard Development Company to print directly on film in up to 256 colors with digital-photo-quality, which is then heat-applied to the tubing.
According to Bennett, Montebello’s recent investment in two model Indigo WS4500 digital presses has been worth every penny.
FILM STARDOM
“Although we mostly use our dry offset printing presses, for customers with aluminum tubes that require high-end graphics, or for customers utilizing our laminate tubes, we tend to use an HP Indigo digital press,” states Bennett, praising the presses’ ability to work with an extraordinarily diverse range of substrates, including plain and embossed paper, self-adhesive label stock, and various films like PE (polyethylene), PET (polyethylene terephthalate), OPP (oriented polypropylene), Teslin, Vinyl, PVC (polyvinyl chloride), polyolefin and metallized PET.
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