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The company Graba & Schräger was founded in Meissen in 1896. From the very beginning, the company has been dedicated to the printing and further processing of metal sheets. These have been used to produce a wide variety of cans for the long-lasting preservation of various food products. 

Several years ago, the company was acquired by SILGAN Holding from the USA and integrated into its extensive worldwide corporate network. The product range has remained unchanged and the company has now specialized in new areas. Since then, the production in Meissen has been mainly focused on the production of tins used for fish packaging. With a total of 160 employees, all the orders are processed entirely on-site. This starts with the design, the production of proofs and printing plates through to printing, which is carried out on two metal decorating offset printing presses. The 2-colour and 4-colour presses run in three shifts. The metal sheets produced in this process are supplied to a wide range of customers throughout Europe with the export share being about 50%.

The staff is also proud of their ISO 9001:2015 quality management system certification and an FSSC (Food Safety System Certification) according to ISO 22000:2018. This guarantees that customers can rely on receiving excellent quality products. 

Since 2020, the NIP CON SMART from PITSID Polygraphische innovative Technik Leipzig has been used to adjust the contact zones on the two offset presses. The roller adjustments of the inking and dampening units are regularly checked on the sheet size class 7 presses. Especially when replacing the rollers, the measuring system is a welcome tool for simplifying the adjustment and reducing the required set-up time. "The NIP CON SMART is a tremendous benefit for the measuring and set-up process. When I compare the current time and effort needed versus previous methods, I think that every print shop should be using this system," says Mirko Kühn, the Head of Printing Department, about the use of the NIP CON SMART on the presses. "It has a considerably higher accuracy than the conventional method used before, which involved measuring the contact zone on a paper with a magnifying glass. That is where small errors usually crept in," the press operators confirm.

Since two sensors are used with the NIP CON SMART, mutual influences during the adjustment process between the operator side and the drive side can be immediately detected and corrected. Another advantage of the measuring system is that the measurements can be carried out both with dry and inked rollers. This ensures fast and accurate control of contact zone widths in case of decreasing or fluctuating print quality.

The inking unit rollers on both presses are replaced every year. The NIP CON SMART has also proved extremely effective for this complex process.

"Compared to before, we save about two-thirds of the time needed for adjustment. And that's solely as a result of using the NIP CON SMART for the adjustment process of the contact zones. It has proven to be an absolutely worthwhile investment for our facility," adds Mirko Kühn.

The printing facility would also like to make greater use of the statistical evaluation possibilities offered by the measurement results in the future. This will make it easier to detect unusual signs of wear or even mechanical irregularities in the presses. This would enable preventive maintenance measures to be taken to avoid damage to the press and ensure consistently high print quality.