Atlantic Zeiser Division
The slump in global demand for capital goods had a severe impact on the Atlantic Zeiser Group. Compared with the previous year, sales revenues were 30.9% lower at CHF 72.5 million. After posting a substantial loss in the first half, extensive action to adjust capacity helped the division return to profit in the second six months. Nevertheless, Atlantic Zeiser suffered a loss of CHF 4.4 million for the year as a whole.
The usually reliable sector of banknote and identity document systems was faced with special challenges. After a steep plunge at the beginning of the year, demand revived considerably towards year-end, with some orders also being delivered in the year under review. The business has started the current year with an encouraging stock of orders in hand.
The card systems business was hit hard by the decline in card production worldwide. Customers’ liquidity problems resulted in order cancellations. The successful development of a new and growing financial card segment helped to cushion the setback. Atlantic Zeiser is facing particular challenges in the card systems sector, since the card market will take some time to recover.
The business with digital printing systems for industrial applications has held its own well in the crisis. Growing business with innovative printing modules which can be integrated in customers’ existing systems at reasonable cost proved to be a sales driver. This almost compensated for the cyclically induced reluctance to invest in large systems. Overall sales of consumables also remained stable. This sector has positioned itself well for further growth with innovative products. Atlantic Zeiser expanded its software expertise and created a basis for digital printing solutions featuring very high processing speeds through the acquisition of SOFHA GmbH with effect from 1 January 2010.
Events:
Atlantic Zeiser was the first company to succeed in establishing inkjet-based personalisation solutions for financial cards on the market. Inkjet-based card modules from Atlantic Zeiser were certified for the first time by leading financial card issuers Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
Atlantic Zeiser opened a new chapter in industrial digital printing at the PRINT trade fair in Chicago with the world premiere of the revolutionary AZ Delta family of printing modules. This technology can be employed flexibly to print packaging and labels “just-in-time” within ongoing manufacturing processes. This enables substantial cost economies to be achieved in manufacturing and logistics.
New, all-inclusive solutions for industrial digital printing on challenging substrates were also presented at European trade fairs: PackageLine for printing folding cartons and WebLine for reliable label printing, for which Atlantic Zeiser concluded a multi-year contract with a large customer to supply systems for producing pharmaceutical labels.
Atlantic Zeiser presented another major innovation at LABEL EXPO in Brussels: digital printing of high-quality metallic effects, such as gold.