New Zealand Retail Customer Achieves Flawless Wide-Format Lamination with MEFU Flatbed Applicator

2025-12-13

A prominent New Zealand-based commercial print and signage company, facing significant quality and efficiency hurdles with wide-format lamination and rigid board mounting, turned to MEFU for a specialized solution. By investing in the MEFU Flatbed Laminator, the client successfully eliminated issues like bubbling and wrinkling, drastically reduced material waste, and streamlined the mounting process for thick substrates. This case study demonstrates how MEFU’s precision technology provided a complete and measurable upgrade to the client’s wide-format finishing capabilities.

The Customer's Wide-Format Challenge

The client, a leading provider of large-format graphics and retail displays in New Zealand, relies heavily on high-quality lamination and mounting for its product range, which includes indoor signage, outdoor graphics, and promotional displays on rigid materials.

For years, the client struggled with traditional roll-to-roll laminators and manual application methods when dealing with projects that were both wide and required mounting onto thick substrates (e.g., 10mm Foamboard or 5mm PVC).

The Core Difficulties Included:

Wide Format Inconsistency: Achieving smooth, bubble-free lamination on materials exceeding 1.5 meters proved consistently difficult, leading to rejected prints and rework.

Precision Mounting: Manually mounting large prints onto rigid boards resulted in frequent misalignment, trapped air, and slow production speed, impacting tight deadlines.

High Waste & Labor Costs: The combined issues of inconsistent quality and slow manual processes resulted in high material waste and inefficient allocation of skilled labor time.

The need was clear: the client required a precise, reliable, and versatile machine that could handle both lamination and mounting across diverse, wide-format media.

The Solution: Introducing the MEFU Flatbed Laminator

Recognizing that conventional methods were unsustainable for their growing wide-format demand, the New Zealand customer initiated a global search for a specialized application solution. Their research led them directly to the MEFU Flatbed Laminator (MF-B4), renowned for its superior control and versatile functionality.

The decision to choose the MEFU Flatbed was based on its fundamental design advantage over standard roll machines, particularly for rigid materials:

Key Advantages of the MEFU Flatbed System:

Precision and Control: The flatbed table provides a stable, perfectly level working surface, allowing the operator to use the moving gantry roller to apply pressure uniformly across the entire width and length of the substrate. This virtually eliminates air bubbles and wrinkles, even on the most challenging, oversized prints.

Versatility and Material Handling: The flatbed design allows the effortless handling of substrates that traditional laminators struggle with, including acrylic, aluminum composite, glass, and thick Foamboard. The ability to perform both lamination and mounting on the same machine streamlines the workflow significantly.

Ergonomics and Efficiency: Features like the segmented, backlit table and the adjustable pressure roller enhance operator visibility and control, leading to faster setup times and more consistent application speeds.

The specific MEFU model selected offered the necessary working dimensions to accommodate the client's largest signage requirements, ensuring future-proofing for expansion.

The owner of the New Zealand company stated:

"The MEFU Flatbed has completely revolutionized our finishing department. We were losing time and material on large, rigid mounting jobs, but now, the process is fast, precise, and completely reliable. We can confidently quote on complex, high-margin projects that we previously had to turn away. This machine wasn't just an expense; it was an essential investment in our quality and future capacity."

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