Unlearn to Learn .......

Background

In early 2005?with less than 15 CI Flexographic presses installed across India , one of our key tasks was to increase the awareness and advantages of Flexographic printing as a print process while serving our existing customers to solve their day to day issues.

One of the key issues faced by Flexographic printers ( using CI Flexo presses ) was a problem known as “ bouncing “ which resulted in a “mis-print” . Technically speaking it was the result of the plate surface not coming in contact with the substrate since at high speeds it would have a mechanical “bounce”.

Coming from a segment where Flexo presses would use gears for transferring the power from drive to roller, the focus was mainly to resolve the gear pitch and then of course reach a right balance between the plate and double sided tape cushion combination and run the press at lower speeds.

As new gearless presses started getting installed , this factor was also eliminated , however the focus moved to the design elements and the sleeve – DS Tape combination . When the designs were having solids with large spaces between it became a practice to either slow down the press speed or stagger the design or a combination of both.

With the brunt of the issue coming on all suppliers of the flexo eco system , the tradeshops even started struggling with the right solution. Imaging device manufacturers and pre press software companies even started introducing software packages and hardware to ensure tradeshops could stagger the design elements easily.

As a plate solution supplier?and with my previous experience as a Flexo printer I prepared a document for best practices which would help in avoiding this bounce issue and also increase control matrices in the system which was hugely lacking. ( ppt shared below ) – by re-enforcing the concept of a bearer bar on each of the plate .

It was well adopted by the trade shops so much so that it has now become a standard .

Remedy - The Anti Bounce feature

While introducing the key USPs of the SOMA CI Flexo Press at a meeting , while speaking about the benefits of the Anti bounce feature ( https://soma-eng.com/flexographic-presses ) and looking at the printed samples, the pre press specialist quickly discovered that he can do away with the bearer bar, and therefore the converter reduce the width of film by 30 mm .

When we shared this fact with a converter, the impact of this saving very soon dawned on him and his jaw dropped with a “wow”. In yet another meeting another leading converter specifically mentioned that they were loosing 25 to 30% productivity since they had to reduce the speed of the press while printing designs which resulted in bouncing inspite of all design considerations.

Impact on Sustainability and Capacity

While the entire industry is now focusing on sustainability and circular economy, one of the key elements in flexible packaging is to reduce the consumption / usage of film, since substrate is the largest component of costing in the raw materials.

With a simple back of the envelop calculation , and the amount of film saved with this feature it showed a saving of over 50000US$ per annum . besides a 25% increase in productivity .

Less Capex investment

While studying the print repeat widths when using this feature one can even introduce an additional print “ up “ to use a larger width printing press thereby eliminating the need of an additional investment.

This is based on the recent finding that some converters look for added capacity by adding 3 presses of 1000mm each , instead you could have 2 of 1270 mm and print a larger width . and reduce capex investment by almost 1Million US$?

End Result

It was very clear post these discussions and findings that we can successfully print on CI Flexo Presses without any bearer bars which aren't necessarily required on the newly automated SOMA Optima2 along with IRIS technology .

Obviously I had to unlearn and roll back on my learning and adapt to the new systems. A lot to "learn" .....