American Greetings Expands Digital Finishing Suite with New Highcon Machines

YAVNE, Israel — May 27, 2016 — Highcon has announced that American Greetings, the world’s leading greeting card company, has expressed interest in adding two additional new Highcon Beam digital cutting and creasing machines to its U.S.-based digital finishing operations.

Following the success of the integration of the Highcon Euclid into the company’s production facility in early 2014, American Greetings has ordered a second Euclid. The Euclid has contributed directly to the company’s ability to shorten processes, reduce inventory, and improve flexibility and time-to-market.

The Highcon Beam machines are the latest flagship products being launched by Highcon at drupa 2016 and were developed with the aim of bringing all the advantages of digital finishing to mainstream production.

"We have already seen the benefits of this game-changing technology, and this latest addition to our fleet of manufacturing equipment will help us reach the market more quickly with variable short-run order quantities," says Zev Weiss, CEO, American Greetings, "At the same time, the variable data cutting feature will allow us to produce truly personalized cards, even down to single-card orders."

Aviv Ratzman, CEO and co-founder of Highcon, also adds, "The decision by American Greetings to continue investing in Highcon technology alongside their conventional equipment is a rewarding validation of the direction our company has taken, expanding our product portfolio with this new high-speed, production machine."

Based on Highcon’s proven technology, the Highcon Beam digital cutting and creasing machine is one of three new machines being introduced by Highcon at drupa. With a speed of up to 5,000 sheets per hour, this breakthrough machine was developed as a robust solution to the challenges facing folding carton converters and print service providers. The Beam supports Variable Data Cutting for customization, personalization and serialization and has an optional 3D Modeling capability.


About American Greetings
As a leader in meaningful connections, American Greetings is a creator and manufacturer of innovative social expression products that assist consumers in making the world a more thoughtful and caring place. Founded in 1906, the company’s major greeting card lines are American Greetings, Carlton Cards, Gibson, Recycled Paper Greetings and Papyrus, and other paper product offerings include DesignWare party goods and American Greetings and Plus Mark gift-wrap and boxed cards.

American Greetings also has one of the largest collections of greetings on the Web, including greeting cards available at Cardstore.com and ecards available at AmericanGreetings.com. In addition to its product lines, American Greetings also creates and licenses popular character brands through the AG Entertainment group. Headquartered in Cleveland, American Greetings generates annual revenue of approximately $2 billion, and its products can be found in retail outlets worldwide.

About Highcon
Highcon delivers innovation and differentiation that converters, printers, and brand owners all need, transforming "finishing" into a value adding process to positively impact users’ profitability by increasing speed to market, eliminating costly production steps and reducing carbon footprint.

Source: Highcon.