Flexographic Printing - Wide Web

Measuring success in a business isn’t always done by solely tallying dollars and cents. Customer and employee loyalty is one measuring stick, and having the ability to adapt to trends within a particular industry is still another, while setting high expectations and meeting them is another way. Flexstar Packaging, Inc. (Richmond, British Columbia) has a clear vision, a heavy focus on people, and the ability to change quickly—all of which are hallmarks of its success. Another notable quality is its ability to solve problems. “We believe it is very important to dig in and solve issues versus playing the blame game,” says Marc Bray,

GREEN BAY, Wis.—Paper Converting Machine Company (PCMC), a global leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance flexographic printing machinery for the flexible packaging industry, has announced the sale of a new 65˝ Infiniti NT 10-color CI flexo press to Larsen Converting Industries. The Infiniti NT is equipped with new features to improve print performance and productivity. Larsen Converting serves a variety of markets ranging from industrial packaging to the fast food, infant care, medical, and party industries. The company is investing more than $3 million in the new PCMC press, which will allow Larsen to add 14 full-time jobs this year. In a

Pouches Offer Profits for Printers, Flexible Advantage to Retailers When store chain Brookshire Brothers re-packaged its tamales in a “Hot N Handy Pouch” supplied by Robbie Manufacturing, the company’s tamales got hotter in more ways than one. Thanks to the new, colorful pouches, Brookshire Brothers realized an immediate sales increase for the product of 20 percent over the previous year. Long associated with boxed rigidity, packaging is steadily becoming more flexible each year. Pouches are inundating food and beverage markets and making healthy gains in other categories such as pharmaceuticals and consumer goods. The future of the market continues to look strong. Demand

Wide-web printers are facing a transforming marketplace. The changes, however, are in many ways advantageous for wide-web print shops. For instance, consider the switch many brand owners have made in their packaging, swapping rigid packaging materials for retort and stand-up pouches. These packaging innovations have created a fast-growing market segment that benefits wide-web printers. In addition, competition on store shelves has forced brand owners to require higher print quality in their packaging in an attempt to make their products stand out from the crowd. This, in turn, has required wide-web press manufacturers to produce equipment that enables printers to meet and surpass these demands.

Most screening technologies work well. Every prepress workflow presents a multitude of screening options. Beyond these simple assumptions, however, questions proliferate. Is AM screening the right choice, or is FM better? Will transitional screening supplant them both? What are the tradeoffs? How tight a process control window can the printer operate within? The answers to these questions vary from market to market and from one print discipline to another. What is certain is that the right choice of screening method can help printers in their quest for differentiation. It can also have an impact in the pressroom, based on its runnability. Screening

With so much focus on the narrow-web printing industry, many advances in wide-web presses have taken place under the radar. There have been a myriad of production enhancements, including faster changeovers, less waste, faster speeds, and higher productivity and quality. Technological enhancements across the board have increased the efficiency, economics, and caliber of wide-web printed packaging. These advances have attracted a lot of attention. “I see a continued high interest in any and all technological improvements associated with increasing productivity, quality and, of course, enhancing the profitability of the converter,” said Randy Wolf, product development manager, Comexi North America. In the June issue of packagePRINTING, we

The Comexi Group will be hosting customers at an open house to be held in Girona, Spain, May 30th through June 1st. At this time, and in collaboration with Sun Chemical and E.S.I., Comexi will be demonstrating its FW Press with EB technology. Two separate eight color jobs will be run using the same substrate, pearlised BOPP, and the same inks. One of these two jobs will also be run on an adjacent press using solvent inks and printing on the same substrate so that a direct comparison can be made between the print quality of solvent inks vs. EB. Please contact Comexi North America

Bell-Mark Sales Co. Visit www.bell-mark.com Model Width (in.) Repeat (in.) Speed (fpm) Wide-web to 80 to 80 1,000 Write 495 on Reader Service Form BHS Printing Machinery Visit www.bhsprint.de Model Web Width (in.) Max. Print Width (in.) Speed (fpm) Flexline Vario 26.5,34,40, 26,33.5,39.5, 1,300- 52,64 52,64 1,600 Flexline Compact 26.5,28.5,32.5, 26,28,32,40, 650- 40.5, 52.5,64.5 52,64 1,000 Flexline Intro 23 to 65 22 to 67 1,300 Write 496 on Reader Service Form J BOBST GROUP USA INC. Visit www.bobstgroup.com Model Type Colors Width Range (in.) Speed (fpm) EF 4020 Gearless CI 8 43.7-48.75 984 EF 4010 Gearless CI 8 31.2-54.6 1,148 GF 3020 Geared CI 6 31.2-54.6 656 SF 2020 Stack Type 1-8 23.4-54.6 656 DS 1010 Downstream Gearless 8 31.2-66.3 984

Anilox rolls are often considered “the heart of the flexographic printing process,” as Dr. Lloyd Dreger of Laserlife points out below. As such, anilox rolls have played an integral part in the quality improvements that flexography has made in recent years in the packaging arena. To get a first-hand perspective on the impact these rolls will continue to have in package printing, packagePRINTING posed a series of questions to executives at the front lines of the industry. pP: Flexographic printing has made great strides in improving its quality to better compete against offset and gravure. How have improvements in anilox roll technology contributed

By Susan Friedman packagePRINTING devoted a separate survey to the ink usage trends among wide-web, flexible packaging printers. The majority of respondents reported printing flexo (75 percent), and revealed about a half and half split between solvent ink (60 percent) and water-based ink (55 percent) usage. The general ink characteristic that carries the most weight with the wide-web segment, according to 55 percent of respondents, is compatibility with a wide range of substrates. "Everyone would like one ink to work on all substrates," says Len Walle, marketing director at Flint Ink, "but a universal ink is not available that will provide quality performance on