ITC Cutting Edge - Driving Growth with Zünd and Integrated Automation

Founded in the early 1980s as a film processor and typesetter, Image Type Corporation (ITC) has continually evolved to meet the ever-changing needs of the graphics industry. After Dennis Brown joined the company in 2002 and eventually acquired it, a name change to ITC Cutting Edge marked the beginning of a new era.

In 2005, Dennis’s son Daniel joined the family business after serving in the U.S. Army Infantry, and the following year his Army brother-in-arms, Luis Gonzalez, came on board. Daniel and Luis had to wear many hats as they became deeply involved in all aspects of the company and its continually expanding products and services. By 2019, the pair purchased ITC from Dennis and set out to further modernize the company and better serve their customers through strategic investments in top-of-the-line technology and automation.

Today, ITC Cutting Edge is known as a high-performing display and packaging specialist, with a strong presence in the adult beverage industry. The company has built its reputation on delivering premium-quality product resulting from the seamless integration of print and finishing automation and the flexibility, speed, and reliability it provides.

As ITC grew, so did the expectations of its customers. Projects demanded faster turnaround times, larger quantities of short-run orders, and ever more diverse applications. For efficient, flawless print production, the company installed a swissQprint digital printer capable of processing everything from 24pt cardstock to two-inch-thick wood panels.

It soon became clear that finishing would be the key to scaling efficiently, and Zünd with its precision, reliability, and reputation for quality engineering was an obvious choice. To conquer inefficiencies inherent in manual material handling, Daniel and Luis knew that a fully integrated, automated production workflow would be the next step forward.

In searching for the right finishing equipment, ITC Cutting Edge had turned to Zünd, a name synonymous with precision, reliability, and Swiss engineering excellence. The installation of a Zünd G3 3XL-3200 cutting system provided the backbone for a seamlessly integrated production workflow with the swissQprint Nyala 3 printer.  Adding Integrated Motion Control’s material-handling automation to the production line also proved transformative. With Zünd’s UNDERCAM and IMC’s automatic Feeder, productivity immediately jumped by 25 percent, with the promise of another 25 percent increase once the IMC Stacker is installed.

The integration of Zünd precision cutting with automated material handling has enabled ITC to streamline operations, reduce turnaround times, and further expand its production capabilities. Comments Luis Gonzalez, COO of ITC Cutting Edge: “Getting the Zünd cutting system along with the Feeder was a great move for us. It’s super reliable, really precise, and has definitely been worth the investment.”

With Zünd technology and workflow integration at the heart of its finishing operations, ITC Cutting Edge has achieved:

• Speed – dramatically reduced turnaround times
• Reliability – consistent output, shift after shift
• Precision – exact, repeatable cutting across many different substrates
• Versatility – quick realization of bold, creative ideas 
• Productivity – significant increases with IMC material-handling automation
• Expansion – increased capacity, opening doors to new product offerings and even bigger opportunities