Smart & Connected
Paper Converting Machine Co
Game changing technologies—they’re streamlined, safe, sustainable, hybrid, energy conscious… fraught with artificial intelligence.
The latest generation of flexographic equipment has integrated AI features, which have created machines capable of more consistent printing with less variability. This allows products to be brought to quality specifications at rapid speeds while also producing less physical waste, which also benefits an organization’s green efforts.
AI technology, such as camera-based automatic impression and register systems, takes operator error and guesswork out of the equation as presses adjust to address print inaccuracies without human intervention. Similarly, recent anti-bounce innovations utilize algorithms to monitor, adjust and address bounce in real time, helping to reduce both run times and unnecessary waste. 
Designed to reduce the need for human intervention, PCMC’s latest generation of presses was developed with integrated AI features:
- Innovations like automatic registration and impression settings utilize cameras to eliminate operator error as presses adjust to address print inaccuracies on their own
- Our award-winning Steady Print anti-bounce technology serves a similar purpose, as algorithms are used to monitor, adjust and address the negative impacts of bounce on printing in real time
These AI features have become more important not only with the demand for shorter runs but also as packaging with more intricate artwork continues to rise in popularity.
One of the biggest variables in the flexographic printing process is the quality of the anilox roller. When anilox cells perform at correct volumes, it allows for better color matching and print repeatability—saving time, ink and waste. That is why we developed the Meridian Elite laser anilox cleaner. Its patented laser technology deep cleans engravings of any linescreen without increased surface temperature or hot spots. The fastest cleaning cycles in the industry along with smart and connected features help keep printers and converters operating at peak efficiency. The Meridian Elite was awarded with two monumental industry awards—a 2020 FTA Technical Innovation Award and the 2020 Label Industry Global Award.
As customers begin to adopt films composed of recycled scrap materials or lower gauge films that reduce the amount of plastic used, it becomes that much more critical that machinery is manufactured to exact tolerances. As the material becomes thinner, it becomes more difficult to convert, which requires precision machinery to prevent waste.
That challenge is what drove the development of our new center surface rewinder. It handles tough-to-run materials like cling film, stretch PVC, extensible substrates and light gauge shrink films with ease. Its lack of turreting in roll-to-roll transfers eliminates waste from unstable materials. The new rewinder is an available option on our Fusion C flexographic press.
RethINKing Packaging
Jarred Carter, business unit head/flexible packaging, Siegwerk
Circular economy has become the buzzword for businesses around the world. In the packaging industry, inks and coatings play an important role in the recyclability of flexible films and labels. They can close technical performance gaps and improve physical characteristics that enable circularity. We are working diligently on new applications for these express purposes.
Siegwerk has developed washable ink technology, accredited by the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), that enables deinking of UV LED-printed PET shrink sleeves, thus allowing for the post-consumer recycling of a sleeve along with PET bottles. Furthermore, we are developing solutions for mono-material applications, enabling the use of a single type of material which makes these structures easier to recycle than conventional multi-layer materials. We are committed to rethINKing packaging to improve the world we live in and are very well positioned to support all of these initiatives in the future.
While the pandemic has been challenging in regard to social distancing efforts, it has led us to utilize new and highly effective ways to interact and collaborate with our partners. COVID has clearly accelerated the digitalization trend. At Siegwerk, we have already begun to usher in new digital service technologies for 2021 and beyond.
Our new remote service technologies allow us to collaborate in real-time with our partners as we are able to connect the appropriate resources to view and solve problems instantaneously. This ends delays created by scheduling or travel, and allows any team member, no matter their location around the globe, to readily engage and solve problems. The virtual experience brings the full benefit of a strong global technology and service network to provide valuable support to our partners.
Siegwerk has also developed a wide array of digital services that will enable our partners to achieve an entirely new level of efficiency and productivity utilizing enhanced supply chain and color management tools, big data and artificial intelligence. MyInkRoom will provide a single point of access that allows full span of control within an entire manufacturing workflow, limiting dependency on decades-old support platforms. Overall, we anticipate significant benefits in efficiency, productivity and total cost of ownership.
Corporate Sustainability
Tony Renzi, VP, product management, packaging inks, Sun Chemical
Industry-wide, we’re seeing a strong push toward sustainability. Government regulations and pressures are pushing us toward a variety of changes to the flexible packaging process. Brand owners are setting sustainability goals that they want to achieve by 2025 or 2030. Converters are taking this opportunity to really weigh their options to better understand what is best for the product, the consumer and the environment.
As a result, we’re increasingly seeing the need to consider the end-of-life for a package. When producing our materials as part of overall packaging design characteristics, we must now think about how they are going to be suitable for recyclability and/or compostability themselves, and how they can enable packaging redesigns that are better adapted for recycling and composting processes.
For example, some brand owners are focused on moving from film substrates to paper, but require similar barrier capabilities. At Sun Chemical, we work with the packaging converters to help them determine what is feasible to replace in these structures with coatings and how they would need to be applied. We do a similar exercise with customers wanting to move from a laminated to a monolayer structure, again needing the barrier properties that were used in the previous package.
Sun Chemical’s Corporate Sustainability Committee is comprised of members from different departments in various regions around the globe to strategically develop initiatives that reflect Sun Chemical’s sustainability efforts as a whole. Our three-pillar approach focuses on reducing water, energy usage and waste in our manufacturing operations, developing products that lead to recyclability, compostability or biorenewability, and building relationships with cross-industry partnerships and collaborations.
The partnerships we’ve made with our upstream suppliers, co-suppliers, converters and brand owners, as well as downstream waste management companies and processors, provide us with the insights we need to continue enhancing our current products and developing new products to meet consumer demands.
Our ongoing conversations with our value chain partners provide us with visibility into where we are as an industry currently, allows us to develop targets for the future, and shows us where the opportunities are to bring sustainability solutions.
Maintain Momentum
XSYS
As demand for faster delivery, shorter runs and more sustainability are impacting the printing industry, prepress and printing companies are looking for new technologies that can help increase efficiencies in flexographic plate production.
The global value of flexography is predicted to rise at an annual growth rate of 1.6 percent to 2025, according to Smithers’ latest forecast. However, it is imperative that we maintain momentum and respond to a rapidly changing market, where new consumer behaviors and concerns over packaging’s environmental impact are accelerating.
XSYS, the new Flint Group division that gathers all prepress activities under one umbrella, was launched to offer a coherent portfolio of innovative technologies that will enable the flexographic industry to better meet the complex needs of brand owners. XSYS works closely with customers to reach sustainability goals and deliver best-in-class output.
Added pressure from the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the need for highly automated and remote capabilities for easy support and service. During the past year, XSYS successfully installed a number of machines by guiding customers through the setup process remotely.
Our game-changing solutions offer process automation and waste reduction, which is ideal for optimizing plate production and improving profitability. ThermoFlexX Catena+ is a fully automated plate processing line, which allows customers to produce flexographic plates at the lowest total cost. It can be combined with a ThermoFlexX imager for a full state-of-the-art plate making operation with minimal operator intervention.
The nyloflex Xpress Thermal Processing System is another way to answer calls for greener solutions, higher quality and faster delivery. Producing nyloflex thermal plates in less than an hour, the system helps reduce overall waste and energy consumption, as well as avoid the release of VOCs into the atmosphere.
Our broad portfolio of high-efficiency plates meets the requirements of all types of applications. XSYS flat top dot technology with Woodpecker surface screening offers higher ink density, better ink laydown and reduction of pinholes and trail-edge void. The nyloflex NEF high-durometer plate can be used in UV LED exposure systems, like Catena-E, to create flat top dots without any additional process steps. The nyloflex FTS Digital plate, with inherent flat top dots, can be combined with Woodpecker Nano surface screening to add surface micro-structures that help eliminate dot bridging effects.
XSYS is excited about the future of flexographic printing and is looking forward to working with prepress and printing companies to meet the challenges of increasing quality, efficiency and sustainability.