Flex-pack converter Pechiney Plastic Packaging's Asheville, NC, plant installs a new Schiavi IDEA gravure press from The Bobst Group USA, Roseland, NJ. Bobst recently completed the "turnkey" installation and operator training using a core group of Bobst and Schiavi personnel supported by local contractors. Pechiney reports the press start-up exceeded planned performance and continues to operate as planned. Pechiney's Asheville plant manufactures a variety of healthcare and specialty packaging products.

Lottery-ticket printer Scientific Games International, Inc. installs a new Cyrel™ Digital Imager (CDI) Compact flexo platesetter with PowerBeam optics from Vandalia, OH-based Esko-Graphics. It will be used to produce plates for both US and international games tickets. The converter operates three presses, including a 15-station gravure, a combination flexo/offset capable of up to 17 colors, and a 21-color flexo. Scientific Games now operates a complete digital, direct-to-press workflow. The CDI is responsible for successfully supplying all flexo plates for both the combination press and the 21-color press.

As part of an on-going quality and efficiency improvement program, Matoon, IL-based printer United Graphics, Inc., will introduce in-house sheeting to its business via a new TSK sheeter from Valmet Converting. It expects to benefit from cost reduction, better quality control, increased flexibility and reductions in inventory. The TSK sheeter to be supplied to United Graphics is highly specified with features including four shaftless unwinds, individual web-tension controls and decurlers, digital slitter positioning, a web cleaner and an automatic skid-change system. The order brings the total number of Valmet TSK sheeters sold in the US and Canada to eight machines since 2001.

Recent installations of Signature Select high-speed folder gluers at its plants in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Eugene, OR, will provide Shorewood Packaging with significant makeready and run-speed improvements over existing equipment. The new systems, supplied by American Intl. Machinery, Oak Creek, WI, bring to six the total number of Signature Selects online at Shorewood.

California-based converter Harvard Label Co. installs an enclosed-chamber coating system from HarperScientific.com®, a division of Harper Corp. of America, on its Komori offset press. "Since we have changed our metering system from rubber rolls to the HarperScientific.com enclosed-chamber system on the Komori coating station, our coating-laydown process is much more efficient, and we have eliminated our downtime by at least 50 percent," says Michael Tang, president/owner of Harvard Label.