Monomatic

1951 > 2011: Monomatic, 60 years of history

Monomatic was founded in 1951, in the continuity of a family’s traditional machine construction business, and has specialised in non-stop unwinders and rewinders ever since.
Located in Strasbourg, in the heart of Europe, and employing only 60 people, this single-minded approach has enabled Monomatic to become an exclusive specialist and a major player within growth markets worldwide.

KNOW-HOW
The most significant thing about Monomatic is its ability to produce unwinders and rewinders that operate non-stop. When the company was founded, non-stop unwinders were used exclusively for newspapers on high-speed lines. Back then, small printing units always had to be stopped for the reel change.
Monomatic decided to produce non-stop unwinders and rewinders for smaller scale applications in print and packaging.
This commitment is still strictly respected today, and this specialization is undoubtedly the main reason for the company’s expertise and success.
For Monomatic, the top priorities are quality and reliability for customer’s satisfaction always keeping in mind that a fault could force a customer to stop the line and loose valuable time as a result.

IN-HOUSE SKILLS
Monomatic offers turnkey projects, from the study up to the production start-up, all the manufacturing processes being integrated in Monomatic, all missions executed under precise management rules: mechanical and electrical studies, machining and assembly operations, logistics for machine packing and transport, mechanical erecting and electrical wiring, commissioning and training on customer’s site.
Monomatic offers a large range of products and services for the development from a simple prototype to validate a concept to complete production lines including fully automated solutions (robotics/automated devices for reel handling/conveying), thanks to deep and strong collaborations with different partners.

EXPERTISE
Within Monomatic’s range, there are unwinders and rewinders to cover different purposes and to suit different types of material such as paper, cardboard, but also aluminium, film and complexes.
The company can propose numerous technologies – overlap or butt to butt splice – shafted, shaftless or cantilevered shafts execution – zero speed or full speed splice - that can be adapted to suit the specific needs of the customers. The range of machines can handle web widths more than 3 meters wide, and reel diameters of 2.1 meters.
Overall, Monomatic’s machines can offer the advantage of high performance. Some of them can even run over 1000 metres per minute, high-speed machines more particularly developed in response to the needs of the market for making labelstock products. Monomatic is today one of only a handful of companies in the world to offer non-stop machines that operate at such high speeds, and that are capable of splicing at full speed. 

MARKETS
80 per cent of the turnover of Monomatic is realized through partnerships with European manufacturers, for printing, coating, extrusion lines, reputation and fidelity coming from its machine performances that rapidly attracted many business sectors internationally. The company was thus able to develop its skills in fields as varied as packaging, in particular for the cigarette, the pharmaceutical, the food industry, and labelstock, wallpaper, folio sheeting, printing and paper converting.
Although it operates from one site, Monomatic still makes a global impact. Over 2500 of the company’s machines have been installed in more than 700 different firms worldwide. The company began exporting back in the 1950s and today sells around 90 per cent of its output outside France. Over the last ten years, the Asia area have accounted for around a third of the company’s exports and good prospects for growth are expected in the future on this market, but also on other areas, for example, in Russia, Fareast or on the American continent.

INNOVATION
Monomatic has always been an innovative company, granted by more than 20 patents, and key advances have included the development in 1986 of zero speed non-stop butt splicers, machines first developed for making envelopes and years later, for cardboard applications. The latter born is the unwinder type MS-VT, based on new patented technologies, and able to reach speeds up to 700 m/min.
Thanks to this technical innovation, Monomatic became the world leader on the cardboard packaging market, thanks to innovative solutions such as compact design with integrated festoon on top of the reel stand, or high performance with motorized solution for the reel braking.
More recently, Monomatic has employed its in-house expertise to open up new opportunities for its non-stop technology for the composite market. The company developed, under strict agreement of confidentiality, a special machine to overcome the challenges of handling composite materials for the aeronautic industry and for the wind energy. The technical problems involved in dealing for example with fibreglass or carbon fibre are about how to achieve good web tension control and to find the right solution for splicing. In the past, lines of this type were single station only, so Monomatic non-stop technology has made a real difference.

Even after 60 years, Monomatic’s non-stop technology continues to break new ground. Non-stop unwinders and rewinders have already proved invaluable for the packaging business, particularly in cardboard and print applications. Building on the strong position Monomatic has established in these sectors is therefore a central element of the company’s growth strategy.