Transcript:
My name is JP, and I’m the managing director at Heartprint. Today I get to show you around. Heartprint was founded back in July of 2018. The whole idea came from one of my partners, Stephanie, who is a part-time or silent partner at a microbrewery in Montreal. She realized there were no options for smaller microbreweries in terms of printing on cans. So she started investigating alternatives for printing in small batches with Alex and me, and that’s when we discovered digital printing technology.
With digital printing, we have a lot of advantages. We’re able to print in small batches, we’re extremely environmental because we’re not using any labels or plastic sleeves, and we deliver extremely fast. On top of it, we can offer really cool branding techniques in terms of spot varnish and gloss or matte finishes—stuff that no one in the industry has seen so far.
We met the Ska team back in January of 2019 when my partner Alex and I took a road trip down to Durango, Colorado. That’s where we fell in love with the Ska team. These guys get it right. They’re hard workers, committed to their craft, and we were hooked by their personality right at that point.
Over here we have the depalletizer. It’s completely autonomous—you just load your pallet of cans into the printer, and then it goes up one layer at a time and scoops onto the conveyors. We have very little issues with this machine. It’s really a tank, and Ska’s delivered over 800 of these already on the field, so it just shows they got the depalletizer really well.
From the depalletizer, we have a conveyance system also supplied by Ska that feeds right into the top of the printer. The cans are feeding into the top of the printer all by automated conveyance, and then we get a feed into this printer. This printer is super cool. This screen is like a giant iPad, so we’re able to load print jobs one after the next. It’s kind of like the printer you have at home but on steroids. It’s a CMYK printer, which means it has cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, and it shoots just the right amount of ink onto the moving can. We have a new UV cure with it, so the cans come out looking great right out of the printer.
These cans are in our wheelhouse—real minimalist design printed on a white background, and they look great right out of the printer.
Coming out of the printer, we have more Ska equipment. All the conveyance you see in our shop is supplied by Ska. This is our can escalator. We feed up onto the mat top, and then we start accumulating for the repallizer. Ska says on their website that the repallizer requires one person to oversee it, and this is true for the first few months of operation. But after you get the fine-tuning down, it requires very little supervision. That’s why we like the Ska equipment.
We’re going through a layer sweep sequence right now, but as you can see, there’s no one operating it. We just do a spot check every once in a while to check the tier sheet levels and make sure it’s full, and we’ll check the nesting pattern. These cans get nested great every time. It’s all about the fine-tuning, and after you get that done, there are no other issues.
You just need to make sure the tier sheet magazine is full. You’re able to peek at it from the bottom, and if that’s full, that’s really all you have to check. The rest is easy. This is why we love the Ska equipment. It’s super easy to use, super intuitive, and it’s all mechanical. Something breaks? You’re able to look at it, follow the wire to the center, and see what’s causing your problems. It takes some time, but after you see how it all works, there’s a lot of simplicity to the design. They don’t overthink things, and it’s exactly the Heartprint mentality as well. We don’t overthink things. We’re hard workers, just like the Ska team, and we really saw a lot of ourselves in them. That’s why we ended up choosing to work with them. They’re just great guys and a great team to work with.
The few times we’ve had to reach out for support, they follow up extremely quickly and get our machines up and running again. Their install teams are great. They had to send three different install teams when we started because the install took a little longer than we were hoping for on the printer side, but they did it without complaints and got it all sorted out for us before they left. Really high-level service that we appreciated a ton.
I’d absolutely recommend Ska equipment for anyone looking for a depal, repallizer, or conveyance equipment. They’re really creative. We’re kind of a unique design—a one-off—and they came up with this whole layout for us, and it’s worked great.
Going forward to the next printer, we’re even more excited because we’re upgrading to the Magic Bus from the Can-I-Bus system. With the Magic Bus, it’s going to add more automation because we’ll be able to queue multiple pallets up at the depal side. It also has a whole level of safety. Right now, before going into the depal, someone has to remove the top frame from the pallet, which is always a safety concern. With the Can-I-Bus system and Magic Bus, the top frame is removed automatically, which removes one less potential risk of falling. That’s a huge win for us.
We’re really pumped to be getting the new Magic Bus for printer line number two. The Can-I-Bus system we have now has worked great, but the Magic Bus, which wasn’t available when we bought printer number one, is going to add another level of autonomy to our process. We’ll be able to queue up pallets getting ready to go into the depal, so we’ll have less labor interaction. We might even be able to reduce our labor force if possible. When we’re running two printers, one person will be able to go back and forth between printer one and printer number two.
The biggest reason we’re excited about Magic Bus is that it’s going to add another layer of safety. Right now the guys have to climb up a ladder to remove the top frame, which increases the potential of falling. The Magic Bus system has an automatic top frame remover, so it’s all done with the forklift. Safety is our number one priority, and that’s why we chose the Magic Bus for the second line.
