During its Open House on June 27 Macro Engineering & Technology Inc. introduced the company Soma Engineering from the Czech Republic. Soma is a designer and manufacturer of printing, converting and special purpose machines that will be represented in the Americas by Macro Engineering. At the Open House Soma exhibited its Pluto Compact slitter-rewinder, the smallest representative from their slitter-rewinder family.

"The Pluto Compact is suitable for converting a wide range of flexible and rigid materials such as paper, films and laminates," expressed Petr Blasko, Soma's Area Sales Manager for North America. "The Pluto is a modern, fully integrated machine of compact design capable of slitting and rewinding rolls with excellent quality and high productivity."

Adolfo Edgar, Macro's Marketing Manager, stated that the Pluto Compact is a well-engineered machine that is competitively priced. "This slitter is an example of the best in European engineering without the outrageous prices. It includes many features seen in higher end models such as separate lay-on rollers, special friction rings, rubber coated aluminum rollers, ionization bars, edge & line guide, rotary knife & razor blade slitting, etc. The components used in the Pluto slitter are from recognized vendors with presence in North America, making it easy to service and maintain the machine."

Edgar adds, "It is important to note that Soma offers a slitter-rewinder for all types of requirements. Its slitter family is divided into four series: Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto. The Pluto is the smallest of family. The Saturn is a larger and faster general-purpose machine with added features. The Venus is specifically designed for slitting very thin films and includes an AC servo drive for the unwind brake. The Jupiter is specially designed for rewinding large slit rolls and can rewind up to 1000 mm (39.4") in diameter."

"The relationship between Soma and Macro started from both companies selling to a common customer in the Czech Republic," stated Mirek Planeta, Macro's President. "We supplied the customer with a 7-layer blown film line for the production of barrier films with PA, EVOH and PVDC, while Soma supplied the customer with an 8-color flexo press, a mounter proofer and slitter-rewinders. We were impressed by the excellent quality of the Soma equipment and the superb way in which it performed. Soma is a progressive company who is starting to make an impression in Europe and was looking to sell into North America. Since many of our customers ask us for references on printing and slitting equipment we thought it would be a good idea to partner with Soma and worked out an agreement by which Macro represents them and services their equipment on this side of the Atlantic. We are excited at the possibilities of the Macro-Soma relationship."