Page 52 - Packaging News May-June 2021

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PACK & LABEL PRINTING www.packagingnews.com.au | May-June 2021
Revolution in flexo
Hybrid and digital flexo print systems are offering new opportunities for flexible packaging production, with developments coming thick and fast. Wayne Robinson reports.
Hybrid presses are used for secu- rity barcoding, variable data, person- alised labels, and general short-run printing applications. The ability to switch to only analogue production is a major advantage to maximise production capacity.
A hybrid analogue digital flexo press necessarily gives far more options to the printer to take to mar- ket, and those options are what mar- keting managers of brands are asking for – versioning, personalising, short- run, security, track and trace. A hybrid press offers a lot of bang for
the buck, seriously broadening the application base.
And hybrid press owners are not limited, they are now able to produce a wider range of applica- tions such as folding cartons, flex- ible packaging applications or even tube laminates, which can all be printed, embellished, and die-cut roll-to-roll in a single pass. Visitors to the last LabelExpo saw a plethora of print systems able to print multiple applications, indeed it was one of the
major themes of the show.
Let’s now look at productivity. In
today’s market, this means deliver- ing the right volume, at the right time, for the right costs. Stripping costs out of production is where printers can improve margin, and today’s presses are designed to do just that.
The Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 are touted as the key to success in the digital era, and so they are, but they cost money and of course it has to have a ROI. So, how does Industry 4.0 increase profitabil- ity? By being more flexible, resources are saved not only in administration, but in quality control and produc- tion step approvals – all the key steps are visible in a digitalised environ- ment. Imagine you receive data from your material supplier and it tells you exactly what you can process and at what metre of the reel there is a splice or any parameter out of tol- erance. While you know this already from the reports you get from your suppliers, you can load these data directly into your machines to get the most out of the material to help your operators to process the full
THE digital wave that has been lap- ping at the shores of flexo is becom- ing a tsunami, threatening to sweep all before it. The ability to produce work on demand, in ver- sions, with no set-up, and at high quality, is seeing brands and mar-
keters specify digital. True, digital cannot yet compete at the longer run lengths, but even here it is making its mark, with hybrid systems – essen- tially a standard flexo press with a digital unit attached inline – becom- ing a must-have for flexo shops.
And with inkjet digital printing capable of running at 120 metres a minute these days, having digital inline may not mean too much of a reduction in throughput. Hybrid dig- ital presses may have both or either of digital printing and digital embel- lishing. You don’t have to run digital inline of course, as it can run as a separate production step after the
flexo printing, but one pass is by defi- nition a key advantage.
Virtually all the major flexo press manufacturers now offer hybrid ver- sions, including leading names such as Bobst, Gallus, Mark Andy, Nilpeter and Omet. For pure digital printers of flexible materials, there is no shortage of top notch systems available, with Bobst, Gallus, HP Indigo, Kodak Uteco, Miyakoshi, Screen and Xeikon among those man- ufacturing and installing digital presses for flexibles.
ABOVE: Demand for digitally printed flexible packaging is on the rise. These packs were printed by Read Labels & Packaging on an HP Indigo press.
A hybrid press offers a lot of bang for the buck, seriously broadening the potential application base.”