The two Swiss finishing companies Hunkeler and Kern have announced an agreement to cooperate more closely in the future in time for this week’s Hunkeler Innovation Days event.
Both companies are family owned and are direct competitors, with both offering products for digital print applications including transactional markets. The two have now agreed to align some of their products, though this won’t affect the ownership of the two companies, which will remain separate. Thus Kern will concentrate on its core solutions which are inserting, software, logistics, packaging and card processing. Kern will stop developing and manufacturing its unwinders and roll-to-cut-stack lines but will continue to maintain those its already installed. For its part, Hunkeler will not begin to offer inserting solutions, though it will continue to rely on its existing partners in this field.
The two companies are also looking into sourcing selected modules from each other. However, the two companies will keep their sales and service organizations separate.
This cooperation agreement means that Kern has been able to exhibit its products at this week’s Hunkeler event.
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