COMMERCE, CA—This spring, KBA-Flexotecnica is set to deliver its second EvoXD 10-color press at Signature Flexible Packaging, Inc., a leading Southern California manufacturer of sophisticated flexible packaging since 1954.The additional press has become necessary, says Adrian Backer, Signature’s president, due to the firm’s extraordinary growth and much needed extra capacity.
“Our first KBA-Flexotecnica EvoXD press has been running very reliably since we installed it in April 2014,” he says. “It is being used as our principal press for all of our products, but primarily for our high end process work. Almost from the start, the EvoXD has been producing a clear majority of our printed products. In the last 12 months it has produced 73 percent of our total print production among three presses. It soon became clear that we can’t run our entire product on this one press, even though it is more productive than our other presses. So the solution to this dilemma was to order another EvoXD, thus giving our production scheduling some symmetry. We feel that the new incoming EvoXD will nicely work in tandem with the existing EvoXD press.” Adrian notes that the KBA-Flexotecnica EvoXD has demonstrated three extremely important characteristics: quality, ease of use and speed.
“That sums it all up,” he says. “Since its installation, the EvoXD has been printing commercial orders that are stunning. Print quality is superb and ease and speed of setups are amazing. Run speeds are double over those in our existing presses. We’ve produced several jobs on the press that have happily surprised us in terms of its productivity.”
It’s no wonder that the new EvoXD is currently the most installed press from KBA-Flexotecnica. A key unique feature compared to competitors’ presses is its highly efficient drying system codeveloped with a team of experts from Milan University. The press thus meets even the highest demands in terms of quality with a high web speed of 1,641 fpm. Its innovative operating concept facilitates minimal startup times when changing jobs. The patented auto impression (AIF) and user friendly register control keep startup waste to a minimum.
Both Flexotecnica EvoXD 10-color presses at Signature feature a raft of new technology. Meeting the challenge to speed turnaround time and reduce costs, Signature chose time saving components like the Speedy Clean automatic washup system and inline viscosity control with InkSpec viscometers, auto impression setting, and click and drag zero waste registration along with numerous quality control options such as a 100 percent inspection camera and inline color control.
To differentiate itself from its competitors, Signature has selected a downstream coater and an electron beam curing beam to be installed on the incoming EvoXD press. Having this capability will allow Signature to use a mix of traditional inks and EB varnishes.
Now with a second KBA-Flexotecnica EvoXD press being added to its facility, Signature will be able to continue to grow and offer its customers some interesting design capabilities. The firm typically prints thin gauge plastic film such as oriented polypropylene and oriented polyester on its EvoXD press.
“As customers try to differentiate their products in the marketplace, designs become more complex and varied,” says Backer. “One trend we are seeing is customers that require a matte look with a window. So this requires us to reverse print on one side of the film and then print a matte varnish pattern in register on the opposite side. We have an insetter on this press from BST-Eltromat that allows us to do this. Our first EvoXD was configured with 10 units to give us more options on difficult jobs, and, when running jobs of five colors or less back to back to have the cylinders for the second job in press. The second EvoXD is configured the same way to give us maximum flexibility.”