Ultimate Die-Cutter: Sunrise Hitek and Zünd Team Up to Create a Monster!

If there’s one thing that’s been holding back the signage industry, its size—that’s what I always say. Alright, I have literally never said that. But apparently, the issue has been keeping the boffins at Sunrise Hitek up at night for an age. The folks at Zünd have been busy R&D’ing their hearts out, to come up with a design for their customers that could cut larger, faster, and with less down time. Enter stage left, the Zünd G3 Tandem Cutter.

Sunrise Hitek, one of Chicago’s leading digital printing agencies, has been offering custom large-format digital printing since their establishment in 1988. Priding themselves on fast turnaround, the firm are always on the lookout for innovative machinery which can increase their productivity and enable them to fulfill large scale requests.

Previously, large signage would need to be printed in separate panels, which is not always conducive to the best result. Thanks to the Zünd Tandem Cutter, Sunrise are able to cut extremely large pieces on the enormous 10’x 10’ cutting table. The cutter, which is completely run by CNC-router, runs two different setups simultaneously, with dual vacuum zones (that’s the tandem aspect) meaning unloading and reloading downtimes are overcome. This results in lower labour costs and significantly faster turnaround times. Sunrise is now able to print orders which would previously have taken many weeks, in a matter of days; giving them a significant competitive advantage. The new cutter is particularly handy for large trade show displays and packaging—especially when customers require the material post-haste.

Zünd, a second-generation, family owned business started operations in 1984 in Switzerland. Altstätten, Switzerland is still home to their head office, housing their R&D, marketing and production operations; their distribution network stretches across China, Thailand, India, USA and the Netherlands. Their success can be attributed to a commitment to innovation—serving the growing needs of their customers around the world.

Each Zünd machine is actually a bespoke design for the customer, with sizing and specifications created specifically for their client’s needs. They offer more tooling and handling options than any other manufacturer, but beyond this, users are also able to program the machine to adapt to new jobs as they occur. This diversity and mobility of function make Zünd machines such an ideal solution for the likes of Sunrise, whose product offering is so vast and varied in nature.

The advent of the Zünd Tandem Cutter enables packaging and signage specialists like Sunrise to not only die-cut and score in-line cut packaging to large sizes, but also to quickly and inexpensively create prototypes for firms wishing to experiment with new larger-format products. Packaging and printing firms have traditionally imposed significant minimum order sizes, due to the cost of set-up and manufacturing of such products. The significant savings achieved by the tandem cutter means that small runs are much more economical, and therefore more accessible.

No doubt Zünd and Sunrise will work together to innovate further in the future—continually changing the landscape of cutting, printing and packaging around the globe.