Forward Thinking in a Challenging Business Environment

At every step of the way, all our initiatives and innovations have fulfilled both our Lean manufacturing goals and our sustainability goals. We have not needed to compromise one for the other.

Less harmful UV LED ink curing

For example, Empire revolutionized the screen printing industry with the introduction of its UV LED ink curing technology which is much better for our employees and for the environment. The combination of UV and LED in the manufacturing process doesn’t produce ozone emissions or harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs), eliminating the need for ventilation systems. Now, 100% of the ink we use ends up in the product, compared to the traditional solvent-based ink, where 40-60% evaporates into the air. Another benefit is that UV LED is 98% more energy efficient than traditional UV mercury curing.

One-piece flow of 12-color screen printing

The faster and more compact UV LED curing process enabled an advance in automating the entire screen printing production line. The industry standard for screen printing uses single-color sheet-fed equipment where each color is printed as a separate process — a serial process that extends over several weeks with lots of work-in-progress (WIP) waste. With the smaller LED lights, Empire’s industrial engineers fabricated an existing 6-color sheet-fed carousel press to a 12-color press without changing the footprint, creating 50% more productivity. Now jobs with more than six colors can be finished completely from raw material to finished goods.