Printing security products

With the rise in demand for diversity and higher security processes, South African based Morvest Mithratech saw an opportunity to gain competitive advantage with the recent installation of a high specification Edale Gamma configured for scratch card production.

The ISO 9001:2008 approved company, Morvest Mithratech, was founded in 2005 and is a subsidiary of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed Morvest Business Group. “The fact that we are ISO accredited gives our customers peace of mind that the products we produce, and the procedures we are following are of world class standard” says Faheem Varachia, Managing Executive – Morvest Mithratech.

Morvest Mithratech’s core business is offering secure print solutions for the telecommunications, banking and hospitality industries, and the company is steadily growing into a leader in the field of security products. “The scratch card industry is a very niche and challenging market, but we have grown a very strong footprint in this market, specifically in Africa” continues Mr. Varachia.

Because of the company’s strong reputation within South Africa and surrounding areas, Morvest Mithratech’s decision to purchase the eight colour Edale Gamma 430 line was a natural progression in growing the business. Varachia continues “The ability for all printing and finishing operations to be produced in one operation gives Morvest Mithratech a tremendous technical advantage and commercial competitive edge in the market. We are now in a position to look for additional business in the same field as well as expansion into other areas.”

Morvest Mithratech’s primary business is the production of recharge voucher solutions; including scratch off telecom recharge cards, pre-paid electricity solutions and novelty scratch cards. Further to this, with the introduction of the Gamma, they will now look to enhance their PIN mailer offerings and diversify into niche packaging solutions.

The fully servo driven Edale Gamma boasts web widths of 430mm or 510mm (Morvest Mithratech opted for 430mm wide) and is capable of printing a variety of substrates from 12 micron unsupported film up to 600 micron carton board– at speeds of up to 200m/min; and has the capability to produce all formats of scratch card from single CR80 pin to multi pin cards and sheets.

Complete control of all processes
Morvest Mithratech’s machine includes a large unwind with web cleaning, in-setting for pre-printed webs, multiple flexo print stations with IR/Air and UV drying and combination drying for conventional printing, varnishing, scratch off ink printing, a personalisation unit with Domino inkjet heads as well as hot foiling, die cutting, perforating and sheeting finishing stations with reel to reel or reel to finished sheet production.

Mr. Varachia adds: “We chose to work with UK based Edale as we wanted complete control over the value chain and in doing so, offer the best quality and most cost efficient solutions. We chose the 430mm wide Edale Gamma for many reasons, but the quality of print it produces, as well as quality of designand engineering is second to none, the speed, volumes it can produce and overall versatility of the press stood out”.

The Gamma combines the finest print quality with innovative features ensuring one minute print station changeovers, minimum downtime and minimum wastage. It has servo drives on each print
head, providing pre-register, auto-register and print length control features, whilst incorporating graphic printing, personalisation, scratch off application, veriKD VIII N7 Glowing