Swiss and UK companies GRE Engineering and Lakeside Engineering have linked to form GRE International – a Boston, UK, based facility for rebuilding pre-owned presses with special emphasis on Ko-Pack machines. It will also manufacture spare parts with on-going press service at customer locations.

Managing director Keith Robson comments: “We have installed Kevin Smith as technical director at our Engineering Centre in Boston and have already started our activities. We recently completely rebuilt a Ko-Pack CI press from Kuala Lumpur. It was shipped to our UK facility, where it was completely stripped down to nuts and bolts. It was then rebuilt and, where necessary, new components were re-manufactured.

“In addition to the press rebuild itself, a number of converting processes were added which included a second rewind station, a stretching unit for thin wall laminates, a corona treater, a contact web cleaner, a visual inspection system and a complete water cooled UV curing system,” he says.

GRE International also increased the capacity on the six colour, CI letterpress machine by installing a chilled roller, post varnish UV curing system. The press is destined for a Bulgarian converter specializing in the manufacture of tube laminates for the toothpaste and medical products markets.

Rolf Reichle, md of GRE Engineering Products AG states: “We have worked with Keith and his team for a number of years and believe the formation of GRE International is a natural combination. Because both partners are based in countries with a long history of international trade, we believe the group will be well suited to participate in the fast growing Eastern European and Asian graphic arts markets, as well as our traditional home markets. Our customers know the work we carry out is of the highest quality and we now use and supply parts manufactured in Switzerland exclusively for us to exacting tolerances.”



Contact

GRE International
Tel: +44 (0) 1205 350043