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MEX, SwitzerlandBOBST hosted an open house at its new Flexo Center of Excellence at Bobst Bielefeld on Feb. 13, giving attendees the opportunity to experience the entire flexo process from start to finish. The Competence Center at Bobst Bielefeld has been extended to include a prepress room, meaning it is now a fully comprehensive Center of Excellence for the flexo process, specifically for expanded gamut (EG) for wide web central impression (CI) flexo presses. The Center benefits from an “open-partnership” system, meaning all of BOBST’s valued industry partners are present, ensuring the integration of all the elements that combine to make a flawless end-to-end process.

BOBST open house 1

“Bobst Bielefeld is now the ultimate Center of Excellence,” said Mark McInulty, managing director Bobst Bielefeld. “It provides an invaluable central facility for testing and continuous development of the EG process for BOBST and industry suppliers in our open-partnership system. The Center helps our CI flexo printing customers to maximize the advantages derived from the implementation of the EG process to the fullest.”

The use of EG is growing steadily. The process uses three additional ink colors—orange, green and violet (OGV)—on top of the conventional colors of cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK), enabling a match with more than 90 percent of the Pantone book, compared with approximately 60 percent previously. For a converter, its adoption means many sizable economies of time and cost: no more changes of inks and resulting washing of print decks, no need for a huge ink inventory for storing spot inks, no time wasted in ink mixing and a guarantee of color consistency for jobs that are run a long time apart or in different parts of the world.

BOBST equipment shown at the Open House included:

BOBST open house 2

Open House visitors experienced the entire flexo process from file to the printed reel by talking to the various BOBST partners at different stations about different topics, starting from the prepress facility that houses latest generation equipment shown live at the event:

BOBST open house 3

Other partners illustrated their technologies and knowledge within the framework of the harmonization of all the elements that concur to achieving the best and most efficient results with EG printing.

Presentations were followed the by print demonstrations on the VISION CI and on the EXPERT CI flexo presses equipped with all the latest technologies presented by the partners in the EG open partnership project. Quality control of the print samples was made on the Digital Inspection table, while E-services were demonstrated live in the Bobst Bielefeld dedicated Training Center facility.

“Every single partner we work with brings so much to the table in terms of innovation and optimizing the flexo process,” said Mark McInulty. “The Open House is actually the perfect example of seamless collaboration in action—many companies coming together to combine their expertise and resources to create an optimized experience for our customers. We are delighted to work with all of our partners and to welcome them to the Center of Excellence.”