Page 53 - Packaging News May-June 2021

May-June 2021 | www.packagingnews.com.au PACK & LABEL PRINTING
53
set-up automatically, to save time, material and costs.
Managing all the above brings the stock levels down, not only for the print business but also for all relevant stakeholders in the supply chain. This alone will boost profitability. It reduces the raw material warehouses, the finished material warehouses and all the buffer storages in between the production steps.
Connectivity will deliver real ben- efits. If each link in the supply chain (materials suppliers, printer, custom- ers) can manage and ensure data quality automatically, and if the sys- tems and equipment can talk to each other through the IoT, then everyone is fully informed and there are no nasty surprises, and the supply chain operates smoothly.
In a nutshell, this means for the converters, machines need to start to
talk to each other, and the machine- collective – your plant – needs to start to talk to your suppliers and your customers.
Imagine you are a converter or label printer who knows that the retailer has run out of stock of a certain SKU. This could trigger the full supply chain, and you could know that the brand owner needs more material
ABOVE: Hybrid flexibles: Bobst is among the developers introducing combined flexo and digital presses.
BELOW: Flexibles: digital opportunities
one or two weeks earlier than normal, along with the exact number of miss- ing SKUs, the exact data, and where the goods are needed. This gives you flexibility and increases your free- dom – and this flexibility increase goes backward, step by step, right back to the beginning of the supply chain including the paper mills and film producers. ■
DEDICATED DIGITAL FLEXIBLE PRESSES
Print business owners looking for dedicated digital presses for flexibles are now spoiled for choice, with some big names now manufacturing for the market, including HP Indigo with its new 25K and 6K presses; Xeikon with its CX500; Uteco with its Kodak powered Sapphire Evo W; Gallus with the Labelfire; Screen, which is about to launch its PacJet; Landa, which will have its W10 out soon; as well as Miyakoshi with its MJP30AXF press. In addition, many digital label presses can also be used to print flexibles.
The new HP Indigo 25K, replacing the 20000 Series 4 digital press, affords greater flexibility with two white ink stations and provides higher productivity through a frame expansion from 729mm to 737mm, which will print at up to 42 metres a minute.
Xeikon has its CX500 dry-toner digital printer, which it connects with its Lcoat500 laminating system to create a food-safe pouchmaking line with CMYK and on-pass opaque white printing at 1200dpi.
The Landa W10 digital nanographic press for flexibles was widely expected to make its full debut at drupa. The W10 will, according to Landa, print on a web of 1050mm in between four and eight colours.
Already in the market is the Sapphire Evo
W, the project between Kodak and Uteco, which uses the Kodak Ultrastream inkjet technology. The Evo W prints a 1.25m wide web with water-based inks, and at a speed of analogue presses.
An entirely new technology is the Screen PacJet FL830, a water-based inkjet printing system for flexible packaging able to handle full-scale production applications. The PacJet FL830 is currently scheduled for release in the first half of the year. PacJet FL830 can handle media up to 830mm wide, printing at speeds
of up to 75metres a minute, in a resolution of 1200dpi, using CMYK and white water-based inks that conform to relevant food safety regulations.
And Japanese press manufacturer Miyakoshi has developed the MJP30AXF a water- based inkjet press for printing on flexible packaging. The company has identified food packaging applications as particularly relevant
for MJP30AXF, owing to the use of water- based inkjet and its associated benefits in terms of food safety. The first press was installed last May in Japan.
The demand for flexible packaging is growing and is forecast to continue to grow. At the same time, with pack sizes getting smaller thanks to an increase in single living, and with SKUs proliferating as marketers access deeper data and target smaller demographics, the opportunity for digital flexibles printing is growing by the day.