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FORUM 2020 logo

Drivers… Speakers… Messages… Take Homes—These are critical components of each of the nine technical sessions constituting FTA’s FORUM 2020. The event, set for April 19-22 at the Hyatt Regency Columbus in Columbus, OH, is built around a central theme—Color, Brands, Technology: The Complete Package. Over the course of four days:

Upward of 40 different speakers will share their insights and experiences as they address everything from press optimization to productivity, connectivity, brand integrity, simple economics, standards, globalization, sustainability, artificial intelligence and automated solutions. Some will be printers, others print buyers. Still others will hail from the ranks of prepress professionals, students, educators and original equipment manufacturers. Collectively, these are the people committed to moving flexo forward. FORUM 2020 is their platform and launch pad.

Few subjects familiar to flexographic printers will go untouched as session chairs—and the presenters they have selected—talk to innovations in capital equipment, consumables and their contribution to quality print production, plate making, ink laydown, print fault defects, corrective endeavors, control, measurement, targets and timelines.

FORUM 2020 Chair Hank Welter, TC Transcontinental Packaging, and Co-Chair Ellen Farrell, DuPont Advanced Printing—with an able assist from Kim Madigan, Smyth Companies—will host and oversee the proceedings. Just as they did the planning and development of the agenda, so too have they gone on record and promised:

While the chairs spoke directly with FLEXO Magazine, taking time to run through the program and address how each session reinforces the central theme, this month the magazine elected to follow up with actual session chairs—18 individuals, assembled into nine teams—and asked each of them to dive deeper into the planned proceedings.

Their briefings, organized by session date and time, to mirror the progression of FORUM itself, follow.

Evaluation, Optimization, Control: The Complete Plate Making Package

Sunday, April 19, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Session Chairs: Malcolm Keif, California Polytechnic State University & Jason Cagle, MacDermid Graphics Solutions

Keif
Cagle

Our topic is centered around the flexo printing plate and key aspects associated with quality plate production from beginning to end. As process control is one of the most important topics for our customers, plates are often overlooked with attention given mainly to process control on press. Customers may feel they don’t know enough about basic plate troubleshooting to really dive into the total manufacturing process.

This session is designed to focus on what to look for in the plate troubleshooting process and also address what you should do when converting from one plate technology to a new one. With technology constantly changing, customers frequently get intimidated by the conversion procedure and how it impacts their workflow process.

Our lineup has a mix of suppliers, printers and trade shops, which gives a good breadth of knowledge. Each individual was hand-selected based on his or her skills in their respective roles. These folks are leading thinkers in the plate field, with a strong balance of practical expertise. The roster of presenters:

Expect these individuals to take a dive into setting up a new plate material in your process, troubleshooting prepress and press-side issues, and also address what would need to go down when converting to a new technology.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#bb0000″ class=”” size=””]”Lack of process control in plate making can sabotage the best efforts in printing.”[/perfectpullquote]

The complete package can’t be “complete” without a systematic approach to producing flexo plates. In today’s world, technology changes, as well as a lack of process control in plate making, can sabotage the best efforts in printing. We’ll focus on procedures for optimizing and controlling the plate making process, as well as evaluating new plate making technologies when transitioning legacy files.

By the end of our two-hour session, attendees will be able to:

Print Quality Scoring: Friend or Foe?

Sunday, April 19, 2 p.m.-3:30 p.m.

Session Chairs: Dan Uress, Colorware USA Inc & Kevin Dittman, Graphic Packaging International

Uress
Dittman

Print quality scoring is something that many printers and brands are looking at to better understand and control the quality of what they produce and purchase across multiple vendors and methods. These systems represent a drastic change from the traditional pass/fail methods that have been used to simply maintain a manufacturing tolerance.

This change comes with numerous challenges, new measurements and new opportunities to have a formidable foe in the print battle. Understanding how a new print quality scoring system can be adopted and utilized to its fullest potential—beyond a customer requirement, or scoring metric—is a crucial part of being successful, and finding a true friend and partner in your system.

Our session will explore this topic with a panel of print producing experts, offering viewpoints from the brand, prepress and printer perspectives.

This panel was specifically assembled, as the participants are actively involved in the print quality scoring process. Session attendees will be hearing from experts and leaders with firsthand experience and the ability to directly address lessons learned using the various systems.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#bb0000″ class=”” size=””]”Used collectively in a collaborative effort, benefits of print quality scoring can improve product quality, while tightening printer and brand relationships.”[/perfectpullquote]

Like anything, until it is better understood, print quality scoring can appear concerning, without a good understanding of how the data will be used. But, used collectively and in a collaborative effort, benefits of print quality scoring can improve product quality while tightening printer and brand relationships.

Our primary goal is to educate attendees and raise their awareness to the issue, so they are better prepared to discuss it when the inevitable time comes. While we cannot tell attendees how to implement print quality scoring—as each usage might be slightly different—they should leave with an understanding of how it works and commentary from several perspectives about the benefits and challenges it brings.

Given the knowledge gained from our session, attendees should be able to return to their companies ready to discuss print quality scoring internally and externally. Perhaps most importantly, they will go home knowing where to start to evaluate their own print quality, beyond the traditional metrics of passing or failure.

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