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Forum 2018 FQC Cultivating Our Future Through Research Jean Engelke
Jean Engelke

Forum 2018’s Flexo Quality Consortium (FQC) session, “Cultivating Our Future Through Research,” officially kicked off the event on Sunday, May 6. Chaired by Jean Engelke from RR Donnelley and James Stone from VinEquities Inc, the session featured a look at promising initiatives, student research presentations and more.

Jean opened the session by sharing updates on current FQC projects. The next phase of High Resolution Printing Project: Part A, Print Output Metrics and Part B, Print Performance Comparison, Narrow Web, titled Print Performance Comparison Wide Web, is underway. The project team is working on print trials and will then be analyzing the resulting data. The Flexographic Plate and Mounting Tape Optimization project, reported on at Forum 2017, has had no additional trial work done since then. Review the results of the project and learn more about the FQC.

Jean also shared details of two new projects that are beginning:

Forum 2018 FQC Cultivating Our Future Through Research Jeffrey Schuetz
Jeffrey Schuetz

Following the FQC update, the first presenters were Sonoco’s Corporate Technology Council Chair Jeff Schuetz and Bobby Congdon, the assistant director of the Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics at Clemson University. Jeff presented facts and figures surrounding the amount of food wasted each year, noting 40 percent of food in the U.S.—amounting to 135 million tons—is wasted annually. As fresh food continues to be a growth market, that amount of waste is poised to grow larger. The duo also pointed out that changing consumer behaviors are also impacting food and waste—for instance, the move toward healthy and fresh food, and snacking on the go.

“Why not stop waste before it happens?” Jeff asked. “Wasting food is not going to be an option in the future.”

Forum 2018 FQC Cultivating Our Future Through Research Bobby Congdon
Bobby Congdon

To address this, the pair highlighted their newly formed program Sonoco FRESH, a five-year partnership that will seek to optimize the fresh food cycle and address the current and future challenges in fresh food packaging and distribution. Some key points of the Sonoco FRESH program:

In 2019, Sonoco FRESH plans to hold its inaugural symposium to help foster dialogue around food waste and how packaging can help solve this issue.

The next speaker was 2017 FFTA Rossini North America Flexographic Research Scholarship first-place recipient and Clemson University student Thomas Koester. Thomas sought to utilize different plate cylinder circumferences to produce variable repeats. He used repeats of 12-in., 18-in. and 24-in. The result was 72-in. of unique print from three different sized repeats. Text and numbers could be implemented as security features, he explained, a technique exclusive to flexography.

Following Thomas was another FTA scholarship recipient: Christopher Teachout, a student at Central Piedmont Community College and the 2017 Gary Hilliard FQC Scholarship recipient. Christopher presented his project “Correlation Between Minimum Dot Size and Floor Height,” which explored if FIRST-recommended reliefs should be optimized using recent technology, such as flat top dots compared to round top dots, more precise impression adjustments on press, harder durometer plates and tighter manufacturer tolerances (mounting tape, cylinders, etc.). In seeking to identify other reliefs outside FIRST recommendations that work in a narrow web printing environment, Christopher’s research found that among the three plate types tested, there was a consistent trend—when floor height increased, finer minimum dot percentages were held.

From the testing that was done, a ceiling of detail in the trend could not be determined. In his conclusions, Christopher noted:

Forum 2018 FQC Cultivating Our Future Through Research panel
From left: Dr. Malcolm Keif, Zachary Blackburn, Bettylyn Krafft, Dr. Nona Woolbright

A panel discussion of the Phoenix Challenge followed, which featured Dr. Nona Woolbright from Clemson University; Zachary Blackburn from Central Piedmont Community College; Bettylyn Krafft, the chairman of the Phoenix Challenge Foundation and the president of Krafft Printing Systems; and Dr. Malcolm Keif from California Polytechnic State University. The panel discussed how the Phoenix Challenge has impacted students, how it impacts schools, as well as industry impacts.

“One thing I always stress with [the students] when they are doing this problem solving is it’s their project, they took it on, and they need to figure it out,” said Nona. “It’s a good thing to have them really solve these problems on their own.”

Closing out the FQC session were Chair of the FQC Standards Working Group Dr. Danny Rich, a senior color physicist at Sun Chemical Corp, and FTA Hall of Fame Member Steve Smiley of SmileyColor & Associates. Together, they focused on three new and important standards for a flexographic workflow: ISO 18620, ISO 13655 and ISO 20654.

ISO 18620:

Forum 2018 FQC Cultivating Our Future Through Research Steve Smiley Danny Rich
Steve Smiley and Dr. Danny Rich

ISO 13655:

ISO 20654: