Priorities Listed Out
In addition to Anderson & Vreeland, David, Paul, Jakob, Bill, Paul and Jack, other flexographers quick to submit priority lists and analysis on the state of the packaging industry represent familiar names: Todd Blumsack, VP, web fed at Bobst North America; Tony Renzi, VP, product management packaging inks at Sun Chemical; James Thomas, business development and marketing manager at Focus Label Machinery; and Craig Thomson, regional manager at Martin Automatic Inc.
Also: Richard Black, VP, business development at All Printing Resources Inc; Mike Bonner, VP, engineering and technology at Saint Clair Systems; Larry Goldberg, technical director at Beta Industries; John Rastetter, VP, sales and marketing at Pamarco; Kevin Bourquin, director of prepress operations at Cyber Graphics; Steven Coulombe, regional sales manager at AMETEK Brookfield; and Gill Beard, global public relations manager for print at Kodak, on behalf of its Flexographic Products Division.
Commonality is extensive on each one’s list of priority initiatives, which in summary are:
- Quality control of the output: control of the register, control of the color and of its consistency, and process repeatability
- Adjust to changing market needs due to shorter runs and SKU/brand expansion
- Train and educate operators on best practices—make easier, more reliable
- Audit compliance
- Add digital technology for plate making and printing to improve workflows and decrease labor costs
- Choose digital or flexo presses based on customer needs, including run lengths, turnaround times and quality expectations
- Renew attention on efficiency and sustainability in the pressroom—embrace Internet of Things (IoT) for machine connectivity, enabling the machine to dialogue with the environment
- Product differentiation
- Engage the next generation of pressroom and prepress operators to learn from the current soon-to-be-retired experts
- Educate customers as to what makes a properly prepared job for flexo—the output of Adobe Illustrator set for SWOP (Standard Web Offset Procedures) is not suitable for flexo plate making
- Purchase and utilize instruments readily available to move prepress and printing operation from graphic art to graphic manufacturing, or even graphic science
Read about printers’ business prospects for 2019.
Needs & Expectations
Todd of Bobst relays, “Standardization and conformity on a global scale is achieved through the digitalization of the workflow, which improves the process repeatability and consistency, and can ensure full control of all the variables.” He indicates, “For brand owners, it means the assurance of the consistency of color and quality anywhere in the world, which is one of the essential elements for them to maintain the level of perceived quality, which is strongly related to the purchasing behavior of consumers.”
Tony from Sun Chemical agrees. “There is a supporting system that enables printers to reproduce any color as faithfully and efficiently as possible, whether on paper, board, film, plastic or any other substrate that can be thought of. The key for such a system is to develop multiple libraries of colors that cover the majority of substrates used in the packaging industry, including corrugated kraft, transparent and white films, laminated films, carton board, paper and labels.”
He observes, “These libraries can capture the spectral curves of any color on the relevant substrate—from a physical print—and hold it in a database in the cloud, which can be referenced at each step of the packaging workflow when a brand owner needs to reproduce that color. The additional key enabler is a digital color communication tool that can link every part of the packaging workflow and share this color DNA with every participant.”
When correctly utilized, Tony says, “The brand owner specifies the right color digitally. The designer creates the design file using that exact same color signature. Prepress adapts the file to the specific printer configuration, based on that same color spectral curve. The ink manufacturer matches spectrally the right ink to that digital color specification. The printer ultimately reproduces the color on the final product and controls color quality by comparing directly to the original color spectral curves, as specified by the brand owner, and closes the loop for a seamless color approval.”
He remarks, “This type of system allows everyone to work from the precise and unique color definition stored in the cloud and enables users to operate seamlessly in a fully digital workflow to produce colors that will match the original specifications established from real colors on real substrates.”
John from Pamarco stresses satisfying the markets flexo serves. He mentions, “Color and hitting Delta E remain critical tools in meeting brand owners’ expectations. Here, all the key suppliers play a significant role in continuous improvement.”
Bill of Allison notes, “When technology is combined with the adoption of standards and process control, the result is consistency like never seen before. Today, a printed product will look the same regardless if it is printed on one press, multiple presses in the same facility, or multiple facilities. This is all happening because brand owners are looking for better quality and consistency at the lowest cost possible and today’s flexo can deliver all of these requirements.”
Quality Control
Kevin of Cyber Graphics maintains, “Flexo is on the tipping point of another step change in quality that will enable more supply chain automation to drive better speed to market, while allowing tighter control of our process variables. This change is the culmination of multiple technologies from industry vendors that, when paired together, make flexo a premier print process.”
Elaborating on that point, he predicts, “Using UV-LED exposures of a fine-tuned plate for this specific energy, we are capable of producing more consistent micro features that enable tighter relief control, ink laydown and highlight tone value increases (TVI) to better our industry’s ability to produce more repeatable, predictable and consistent print at high production speeds—especially with EG.
“As speeds increase and ink volumes decrease to achieve a more chromatic color space, other supply chain partners can fine tune their pieces to the puzzle to enable more operational efficiencies,” Kevin observes. “With a tighter control of variables, we can make the much-needed move to control a press using hardware and software to control color to Delta E.”
He further reflects, “At the end of the day, density is dumb (thank you, Richard Black); we owe it to our operators to give them tools that allow them to make better decisions that impact makeready and waste, allowing better color control to actually align our print to set standards. This, in turn, allows our prepress supply chain partners to harness the power of automation, new screening technologies and spectral color management to set clear, manageable expectations of the final result, long before brand owners have significant capital invested in their campaign.”
Speaking to a definitive advantage resulting from such moves, Kevin notes, “We will have the ability to collect a wealth of data from customer interactions, production processes and manufacturing equipment. We will easily be able to mine, assemble and visualize what’s happening in our processes to ensure we are making the best decisions and putting in corrective actions that improve our capabilities and drive quality our customers expect.”