The Technoflex blown film technology is one of Bandera’s top selling systems
SARELTECH, the Cape Town-based field service engineering business in the printing and packaging fields, has been appointed as the SA agent for Luigi Bandera SpA of Italy, a world leading extrusion machinery manufacturer.
Sareltech, led by Sarel Oosthuizen, has in fact become a fully-fledged machinery supply business over the past few years, due to the successful systems support service it’s being rendering to convertors around the country. Up till just a few years ago, Sareltech’s main activity was the supply and installation of extrusion and print accessories (such as web-guiding, print inspection, corona and plasma treatment and anti-static components, among others).
Growth achieved in the process opened some doors and the company has taken it to the next level, so to speak, and been appointed as the local representative of a number of top equipment manufacturers, including Uteco (printers) and Doteco (gravimetric blending and feeding), both of which are also Italian.
This was capped recently by Sareltech’s appointment as the agent for Bandera’s blown film and flat die extruders.
Oosthuizen, who is a qualified instrumentation and electronics technician, has visited the Bandera plant near Milan, Italy, and earlier this year visited many of the Bandera users in South Africa along with the Italian company’s Carlo Pattini; area sales manager for blown film technology. Many of the Bandera machines in South Africa are somewhat dated, but according to Oosthuizen that is more a result of lack of active representation than the quality of the technology developed. Bandera is widely recognised as one of the top extruder manufacturers in the world and its systems offer a high price-to-performance ratio, he added.
Anti-static
If Sareltech appears to have synergy with Italian machine makers, this being its third agency from the Apennine peninsula, it is also having success with Fraser, a British manufacturer of anti-static systems. Going into summer in the southern hemisphere, with long daylight hours and often dry and hot conditions, static levels can peak, meaning that plastic film and bag manufacturers face difficult static problems. According to Sarel, the Fraser equipment does the trick and is proving very popular. A wide range of systems is available from Fraser, notably for uses such as label application and film winding.
Fraser also supplies systems for static generation, which is necessary in applications where adhesion is required.