The first eight months of 2010 are gone and we would like to provide a short review and outlook for the rest of the year – a difficult task with all the fast-changing market influences.
Up to now the business was effected by heavy price increases for all raw materials combined with shortages especially on the natural rubber and resin side. All the signs point to a continuation of this trend until at least the end of the year. With a raw material share of 65%-75% of the finished product for PVC and OPP self-adhesive tapes, the necessity to forward price corrections to the market was inevitable. monta was forced to increase prices between 7.5%-10% depending on the product – up to now.
Despite these difficult surroundings monta has ensured its ability to supply and has, because of clear-sighted planning, not been effected by the bottleneck situation. Customers can therefore rely on monta in challenging situations without suffering hold-ups. Apparently for the competition these shortages has created/are creating immense problems which in some cases led to a stop of production and significant delays at customer level.
For several months monta has been running additional shifts in its coating and slitting department, leading to a six-day production as from June 2010. Volumes have increased by over 25% in the first six months and monta is heading for a turnover of €40m in 2010.
In February 2010 monta was successfully re-certified DIN EN ISO 9001:2008 and DIN EN ISO 14001:2005 by the independent company LGAInterCert.
Furthermore, two fully automated Ghezzi & Annoni slitter-rewinders have been purchased, of which the first one was installed in the month of June. It was fully operational after one week. The second slitter will be set up in the month of October. With these investments monta secures state-of-the-art equipment with continuous quality improvements.
Besides the standard PVC and BOPP packaging products coated with a natural rubber adhesive, the range of more specialised products has been completed with new developments. These products include:
- monta pack 124, heavy-duty, high-tack PVC
- monta pack 200, embossed PVC
- monta film 256F, PVC protection tape
- monta film 257, PVC thermoformable
- monta film 260, heavy-duty PVC with a film thickness of 60my
- monta pack 350, heavy-duty OPP with a film thickness of 50my
- monta pack 370, PET
A new high-tack natural rubber solvent formulation has been developed and the first samples with a BOPP 28my and 32my backing are currently being made available to the market. With this new adhesive, which offers a 40% higher adhesive strength than standard adhesives, the most critical cartons can be securely sealed. If you have difficult carton surfaces to handle, these high-tack products might be your solution. In addition the trials with MOPP products will be completed shortly and monta will also be able to offer strapping tapes with a natural rubber adhesive. The development of a printable BOPP low noise is ongoing. The first trials at customer level have given promising results.
Please contact monta for its current and new product range.
The remaining four months of 2010 will continue to challenge the management skills of the key responsibles at monta as the market will stay difficult and extremely fast-moving. Predicting the future is a hard task, but economy is slowly recovering and this is a step in the right direction.