The Ritrama name personifies an international group of companies dedicated to the global converting of pressure-sensitive labelstock and other specialty materials.

With 600 employees and no less than seven production plants—three in Italy, two in the US, one in the UK and one in Spain—Ritrama Group is today the largest privately owned p-s products company in Europe. Founded in 1962 by Arnold Rink, the converter is now managed by the second and third generations: Tomas Rink and his sons, Ricardo and Ronald.

Twenty coating lines using emulsion, solvent-based and hot-melt adhesives on both film and paper substrates—from thin-gauge films to heavier-weight paper and board—on film or paper release liners, enable Ritrama to meet the most demanding specifications of its global customer base.

To stay on the leading edge of manufacturing technology, the Ritrama Group commissioned two 2-meter-wide Bobst Atlas slitter/rewinders (www.bobst-group.com/atlasww) at its labelstock facilities in Italy and Spain. An Atlas OCS-2 slitter/rewinder was installed earlier this year at the factory in Barberá del Valles, near Barcelona, following the startup of the first machine during autumn 2005 at the the company's new state-of-the-art plant in Caponago, near Milan. That facility is now established as the group's headquarters and includes fully automated slit-roll handling, robotic palletizing and packing systems for high-volume output of all types of labelstock.

Based on sales volume, the Atlas OCS-2 slitter/rewinder is one of the most successful 2-meter-wide machines in the Bobst Atlas portfolio, developed specifically for the labelstock industry, the supplier says. The design of the machine has recently been enhanced to process all new types of film stocks. However, its operation is simplified with differential rewind shafts, linear tracking of rewind carriages, easy access to knives and rapid changeovers of slit widths. More than 60 Atlas OCS-2s have been installed to date worldwide.

The Atlas slitters are the first 2-meter-wide units to be installed at Ritrama and operate at speeds of up to 1,650 fpm. They feature automatic knife positioning and male blade-cleaning systems. At the Barcelona facility, the OCS-2 is integrated with a fully automated slit-roll unloading and handling subsystem. In Caponago, robots control pick-and-place palletizing operations with automatic delivery of interleaves between the layers of palletized rolls. The robots are able to handle large finished rewound rolls, which can be individually labeled for customer identification.

“We're so pleased with the performance of both of the Atlas slitter/rewinders that I would recommend these machines to any labelstock manufacturer,” says Ricardo Rink. “There is no doubt that our recent increases in productivity and improvements to slit-roll quality have been largely due to the technology provided by Bobst Atlas and the excellent performance of their machines.”

The Atlas OCS-2 center-surface winder runs rewind diameters up to 45 in. from parent rolls up to 63 in. It has automatic web-tail cut-off and tape down and an automatic core-loading system for either 3- or 6-in. cores. All Bobst Atlas slitter/rewinders are designed to meet EU and CE requirements for health and safety.