The solution
To get to the bottom of the issue, Geostick and Avery Dennison began running tests.
“We couldn’t clearly identify the cause, so we started at the beginning: the raw material,” says Thomas van Nieuwstadt, Key Account Manager at Geostick.
They looked at the raw material, the adhesive, printing method, and packaging process at Rymax, so that all quality requirements, ranging from filling to labeling and transport, could be checked in one go.
“An important factor we had to consider was the extreme conditions in some places where Rymax’s products are sold,” says Hans Eichenwald, Marketing Manager at Avery Dennison. “These include high humidity in some places and extreme heat in others.”
Together, Avery Dennison and Geostrik developed a special test method to identify differences in lifting under various conditions. Raw materials were tested in special drying cabinets which could simulate the varying conditions of the points of sale, including testing products for a full week at 70℃. These tests clearly demonstrated the differences between label materials, enabling them to arrive at the optimal material: a top-coated polyethylene film.
They also tested different colored bottles and ink amounts, as well as four different Avery Dennison adhesives and two facestocks. The polyethylene also had to be tested on the printing presses, which allowed them to optimize the printers’ settings.
“Adjusting the settings led to less heating of the label during printing, helping us prevent the labels from curling when they came off the press,” says Thomas.
After all these carefully conducted tests, Geostick and Avery Dennison helped deliver Rymax an optimized solution: a high performing label material in polyethylene, a high performing adhesive in Avery Dennison’s S477, and adjusted printer settings which deliver labels that pass the real world test, time and time again.
