Everything began back in 1984, when Goran Šutalo became self-employed and started repairing household appliances in his father’s garage. Four years later, he founded Color Emajl, began enameling products, and hired the first ten employees. In 1996, the company in Požega started producing stove pipes.
Today, the corporate group includes not only Color Emajl but also Color Trgovina, which operates retail stores in Croatia; the German subsidiary Color Fire; the logistics company Color Transport; and the newly established company Vinota, which is expanding into tourism, hotels, and hospitality.
Many employees have been part of the company for years, as the well-being of its staff is particularly important to the management.
New ideas for satisfied customers
“Our customers outside Croatia are essentially distributors. They always want new products and lower prices,” explains Head of Development Miroslav Lukačević as he describes the challenges.
Color Emajl continuously develops new products along with the tools needed to manufacture them. “If you want to stay competitive, you have to invest in new technologies—otherwise you’ll be overtaken,” says Lukačević. The company is also not afraid to design its own machines when necessary: “If you can’t buy it, you have to develop it yourself. Standard machines quickly reach their limits. We, on the other hand, want to remain flexible and meet all the needs of our customers.”
The success of Color Emajl is also reflected in numerous awards. In 2021, the company received the EU-level “Creator of the Century” award, an honor granted annually to only a select few companies. Additional awards have recognized its exceptional management performance and outstanding export achievements.
Experience with ARKU impresses once again
In Color Emajl’s production, most of the material comes from coil stock—not only for cost reasons, but also because the quality requirements for the cut edges are difficult to pass on to external suppliers, Marinović explains. To ensure that the laser welding machine can optimally process the formed sheets into pipes, Color Emajl cuts the material in-house—using a cut-to-length line from ARKU. The system consists of a decoiler for decoiling coils, a precision leveler with 21 rollers, a cut-to-length shear, and a stacking unit. Thanks to its compact design and start-stop positioning mode, the company achieves exceptionally high cutting accuracy. “No one in the surrounding region can cut sheet metal as well as we can,” emphasizes Lukačević.
Cooperation with ARKU began back in 2010, when Color Emajl acquired a refurbished cut-to-length line. At that time, the company processed around 1,000 tons of material per year—compared with 8,000 tons last year. As demand continued to rise, a new investment became necessary. Since the company had already had positive experiences with ARKU machines and everyone was familiar with the technology, ARKU was chosen once again. “Other systems we evaluated simply couldn’t keep up,” adds Lukačević.
New cut-to-length line from ARKU opens up numerous possibilities
No sooner said than done: since 2024, the new cut-to-length line from ARKU has delivered noticeable improvements at Color Emajl. While most of the material consists of 2-millimeter sheet metal, the system can level and cut coil strips ranging from 0.4 to 4 millimeters when needed. It is also practical that the machine can be cleaned without having to be completely disassembled—an ideal feature when switching materials. Loading coils is now faster and easier, which has virtually eliminated downtime.
The workers also benefit from higher precision and better quality. The cutting gap can now be adjusted directly via the control system, whereas on the old machine it had to be set manually. “This is especially important for laser welding, because mistakes at this stage are very difficult to correct later,” Lukačević explains.
During installation, Lorsel — ARKU’s long-standing sales partner in Croatia—provided additional support. “That helped us a lot with implementation,” says Marinović. ARKU was also on site and was able to quickly respond to Color Emajl’s requests.
The new system has since been running flawlessly. Workers no longer have to stay at the machine constantly and can instead focus on other tasks. “We now cut more sheet metal in less time, achieve higher quality, and reduce the workload for our employees,” Marinović summarizes. “The investment in the new cut-to-length line has truly paid off.”
