THOR ESPECIALIDADES S.A. SWITCH TO HEAT-FREE TECHNOLOGY

The chemical multinational group starts a technology transformation process for their printing services hand in hand with Epson, with the aim to increase efficiency and cut-down environmental impact.

THOR Especialidades, S.A. is a subsidiary from Grupo Thor, an English multinational company focused on chemical specialties manufacturing and commercialization with more than 1700 employees. Thor is conscious about chemical industry responsibilities towards sustainability and keep a strong commitment with product development, processes, technology and practices that generate a positive effect for communities and the planet.    

The company core business is biocides development and production, which represents 80% of total business volume, with a very high specialization and that are transformed into preservatives for different uses, from food to industrial products.

Company operations grant an activity based in pollutant prevention with the aim to protect environment and oriented to prevent any type of disturbance sourced by its own activity, especially related to waste management, so incentivizing reuse and recycle, and an efficient use of energy and water.

Albert García, managing director at Thor Especialidades, comments: “During last years our company management philosophy has evolved to allow us to adapt to a highly competitive environment. Our main goal is to make the company stronger, in structure, values and benefits. So, we have reinforced our CSR and sustainability scopes and we are able to respond to supply chain audits to our customers”.

In this sense, Thor Especialidades decisions are already prioritizing environmental and energy efficiency criteria, as well as a demonstrable capacity to reduce waste so to get stronger corporate commitments being aligned with environmental impact mitigation.

After analyzing their printing service, within company’s IT manager intervention, Iván Figueras, Thor Especialidades kept in mind that something went wrong and that there were several inefficiencies. Their printers were based in laser technology and reported several issues, related to quality, a very high stock exceed to produce more copies as to solve printing issues and, especially, a repeated lost of productive time by their employees in managing equipment. Anyway, this service was long time implemented in the company, so it could make some king of untrust and change resistance by employees.

Iván Figueras describes this situation as “we had 11 printers of 11 different models based in laser printing technology. This implied 11 different ways to manage printers. So, efficiency was rather poor”.

And then, it comes REMSA. Printing services vendor and a reseller specialized in Epson technology made a dedicated audit of the whole group of laser printers, to analyze which could be the most accurate proposal to respond to real needs. It was about to dimension the service to key special needs for the company, as to allow to print out any type of work for the different departments at Thor.

Figueras comments that “we should renew our printers and Epson proposal perfectly fitted and, in addition, we were so lucky to get the added value of environmental responsibility. This is a very important thing for chemical industry because regulatory frame highlights this, but also because it is important for us to align any decision with Thor goal to contribute to sustainability”.

A group of users and the IT manager at Thor went to Epson to know, on site, what REMSA was pointing out when talking about heat-free technology as the ideal solution for transformative process. The result was immediate, covering expectations on productivity, savings, and sustainability.

From REMSA stands that “when our customers listen to heat-free technology proposal and, more than this, when they see direct demonstrations of savings and environmental impact reductions of working with business inkjet Epson solutions, it emerges the smart choose and decision”.

In this process of transformation at Thor for their printing services, Epson proposal was not the better positioned if talking about costs. If IT department had just looked for costs, then it wouldn’t be the final choose. But it had a plus of excellent service proposal by REMSA and, especially, a plus on sustainability. It was just to know it and they got it clear that the final election should be smart and that a less environmental impact should be definitive for the final decision.

“We looked for liability, a good product, that fitted economic savings and, especially, that contributed to our sustainability plans. Our company values as a chemical company should be made real and this reality is also in what we choose and decisions we take”, affirms Albert García. “We are very proud of this transformative process and steps we are making towards a totally agreed process with all stakeholders”.

In the final decision process the company is also implying their internal collaborators, departments managers and finally whom will be real users for this equipment. From production to logistics, passing through quality, management, administration, and everyone in general.

From REMSA it was possible to adjust the whole printing field to just 7 printers for document management, based in two models, with the same software and same technology. This implied to assure success in efficiency to get a simpler management for the user, with menus and utilities of better usability and uniformity. More than this, it was set up a second printer for any department and on-demand printing capacity, through personal code.  

For REMSA “the aim was to get the ideal solution to cover usability, productivity and environmental reduction needs. Heat-Free technology of Epson WorkForce Pro RIPS was definitive: mangement time reduction, less consumables, easy to use and simpler activity for the user, consistent service and productivity benefits”.

Each user has an own ID code for the domain, and it is what is being used to get printouts. This makes more flexible the use of printers and reduces the number of copies. Confidential work allows Thor to optimize spaces and reduce up to 4 printers compared to previous service.

For Ivan Figueras, Installing up to 7 units of Epson WorkForce Pro RIPs allows the company to gain in “liability and simplicity as top benefits from efficiency point of view. Now no one calls IT department for consumable changes, so there is an autonomous work and so efficiency gain, because it is more intuitive. But it is also about liability because there are not issues in the process. A paper jam, for instance, implied with laser printers to look even for a map to access Keops pyramid, just joking. Now it is as easier as to open the side or front cover”.

In production plant, a basic need was to optimize a label printing solution. ColorWorks printers  by Epson have solved a lot of problems. Especially if we talk about wast of time in maintenance: total amount of hours was transformed into very negative feedback by the user.

“We did the exercise of meeting all those collaborators having any kind of issue to analyze how to solve it. The objective was to get a solution that allows us to obtain labels that really answer the ISO requirements about natural and salt water, in durability and printing capability. We have solved the excess in stock and waste, and switch to a simpler consumable maintenance and more quality printing solution”, comments Figueras.

The fact is that Thor was previously using laser technology and the cost of specific labels required to be used with such heating technology as laser was so high, so we could say it was really deficit. No doubt that it was a real reason to trust in heat-free technology. At this point, there was a process to fit in all needs, with some elements to be included as rewinder, among others, and when all people implied looked it was the final solution, then Thor decided to invest.

Another key reason was 24/7 service production. REMSA solved it modifying consumable change alerts as to advance them and get some extra time to act, managing an own stock to avoid any issue. The objective was to really avoid any service interruption.

REMSA is sending monthly reports to compare and monitor usage and consumes. This allow Thor to dimension needs with no issues being faced.

Ivan Figueras assures that “we should be conscious and make everyone in the company be part of the why’s for a change. We did a mailing to everyone and explain the process and, especially, sustainability benefits. In addition, we had a dedicated activity with Marketing in making some test and comparisons. With Quality department we analyzed each label to be produced with ColorWorks, because they should include all mandatory elements and in dedicated colours, apart from durability and resistance. Labels and heat do not get along with, so Epson technology has implied a step forward”.

• 1 WorkForce Pro WF-C879RDTWFC printer – see product
• 6 WorkForce Pro WF-C579RDTWF printers – see product
• 1 ColorWorks CW-C6500Ae label printer – see product
• 1 ColorWorks CW-C3500 label printer – see product​

More about Heat-Free Technology  www.epson.es/heat-free

More about ColorWorks colour label printing www.epson.es/colorworks