Flexographic print has long since established its place as a print process of choice for many market sectors. Today, however, the global print marketplace is changing rapidly, with new demands from consumers, retailers and clients requiring more variations and shorter run lengths.
This is challenging the print supplier to implement advances in flexographic technology. New, recently deployed, state-of-the-art machinery is improving efficiency and allowing suppliers to meet expectations within a volatile marketplace. Additionally, the enhanced, operator-friendly equipment is strengthening the competitive posture of packaging converters as they face mounting challenges. Namely: digital (inkjet and toner) print and declining volumes in traditional markets.
All photos courtesy of Comexi
According to several market research studies, the primary obstacles facing the flexographic printing industry are:
- Automation
- Smaller volumes
- Shorter time to market
- Increase in manageable SKUs
- Skill shortage
As a result, printers and converters across the globe are expressing a consistent need and desire for technical solutions that address the quality needs demanded by brands, without compromising the ability to reduce cost. Simultaneously, they insist on efficiently improving performance during everyday production.
Automation & Consistency
Press manufacturers continue to demonstrate commitment toward customer success and satisfaction through an endless release of innovative solutions. All incorporate ever-increasing levels of automation and are dedicated to solving daily production problems. At the same time, modern machinery is designed to address each and every new trend in the market.
For example: Commitment to reducing machine downtime, increasing printing quality at maximum speed, and improving working conditions in a disruptive way, were the catalysts that triggered the development of the Comexi F1—a flexographic press with an automatic device for sleeve changeover.
When it comes to monitoring and ensuring quality, companies are launching new systems capable of finding the exact optimal printing quality point with minimum overpressure. This is leading to a productivity increase of the full printing process, due to the reduction of time wasted cleaning plates. Popular devices, like the Comexi Cingular Real 2 (an automatic system capable of comparing the real printed image with the digital file of a job) give printers a register setup with minimum waste, that is consistent, easy and has fully automatic pressure.
Whether machine manufacturers opt for disruptive innovation, or gradual and incremental improvements to face current challenges, there is a common trend to develop solutions that target efficiency. Automation will become necessary for survival through profitability in the quickly changing environment.
Boost Performance with Expanded Gamut
Nowadays, it is mandatory to invest not only in new products, but also in knowledge to know why and how companies can be more efficient and productive in their industrial processes. The objective: offer better solutions and higher-quality products to customers. Taking this into consideration, expanded gamut (EG) printing is a system most flexographic printers are aware of, but perhaps do not incorporate into the business.
Although there are several reasons to consider EG, most can be placed into two categories: financial and quality. How can you print higher-quality packaging while being more profitable? How can you become more efficient and productive with EG? Ink savings, reduced washups, combo printing and material savings are part of the huge list of improvements that a converter can achieve through the implementation of EG.
Changes in recent years, particularly the number of combined technological advances, have contributed to overcoming the previous limitations in flexographic printing: printing presses and anilox engraving technologies. Ink metering and formulations, process control features and most notably, advances in prepress and plate technologies, have resulted in an increase of ease and product quality when printing with EG.
Let’s focus on the important elements or characteristics that greatly depend on the flexographic printing press in order to properly perform with EG. These components are: registration, durability and dot gain control.
Returning to the F1 example: Comexi’s patented Virtual Master makes the machine able to achieve a longitudinal register tolerance of ± 25-µ. Additionally, incorporation of low-friction pistons to control the positioning of the doctor blade can ensure dot gain during the complete duration of the job will remain constant, independent of bouncing, blade wearing or operator skill and awareness, the latter being of upmost importance.
Machine Learning
Despite the growth opportunities prevalent throughout the packaging world, staffing challenges are currently plaguing the industry.
This concern is compounded by the topic of current employees reaching retirement age and leaving the business. As these established workers complete their careers, package printers and converters indicated they are struggling to replace them with eager, young people seeking a career in the printing and packaging industries.
Industry 4.0 and the rapid rise of automation is spearheading packaging’s continuously changing landscape. Converters are challenged to upgrade their systems in order to increase their company’s competitive capability. Failure to achieve this creates the risk of falling behind the growing demands of customers.
Machine manufacturers continue to demonstrate their pledge to continually develop innovations which are dedicated to solving daily production problems, while at the same time, being committed to addressing all the new trends of the market.
Press manufacturers in particular are pioneers of the quick adaptation to the fourth industrial revolution by developing cloud-based, innovative production control tools. These tools help customers improve their warehouse performance through the analysis of historical production data, thereby permitting them to implement smart factories.
Equipment can generate relevant and valuable production management data in real time. This ranges from production speed, output, productivity, setup time, and the number of reels or downtime for preventive maintenance and repairs. Monitoring and analysis of all this data is the first step in the long but quickly evolving route toward soft machine intelligence and autonomy.
The swiftly evolving path toward machine learning requires input from various devices and allows for the collection, evaluation and use of data for the development of knowledge regarding the manner in which products are manufactured.
Through machine learning algorithms, machines can recommend or suggest an initial configuration (tensions, temperatures, viscosities, anilox volume, color separation, speed, etc.) to the operator in order to reduce the required expertise and maximize machine efficiency. Resulting benefits include: less waste, more uptime and more speed.
Simply put, the greater the number of jobs a machine analyzes, the more it learns and the more effective suggestions it can make. The next step in this line is to merge this feature with video image recognition, thus giving companies the ability to apply the same theory to old and new jobs.
Machine learning transforms the current “art” of printing into a “science” that incorporates the knowledge and expertise of successful past actions to overcome the chasm of the present skill gap faced by new operators. No more undermining the efficiency of the production floor!
About the Author
You must be logged in to post a comment.