Eberle Druck GmbH, Vienna, Austria, is increasingly using flexography to produce folding cartons for the pharmaceutical industry. More than 90 percent of the business for this 104-year-old converter is providing packaging for OTC drugmakers.

The market never stands still, says managing director Martin Schmutterer, who expects further pressure on prices, profit margins and requests for shorter print runs. At the same time, demand for new finishes on folding cartons continues to grow because OTC products and generic drugs are more often being "sold" by their packaging. "These three factors create an area of tension that calls for new technology," he explains.

Eberle Druck found its technology answer in reportedly the world's first installation of a Gallus (Philadelphia) KM 410 narrow-web flexo press for folding-carton production. "It was clear from the start that we needed to combine printing, finishing and diecutting on one machine," Schmutterer continues. "This is why we looked at Gallus."

It was in inline production that Eberle Druck saw the potential for further increases in efficiency and reductions in throughput times. The eight-unit system, set up with UV-flexo capability and flatbed diecutting, lets the converter print cartons with seven colors, add a coating in a single pass, then die-cut online. The Gallus KM 410 handles carton stock up to 0.6 mm thick.

The conversion from offset to flexo printing entailed far-reaching changes to equipment and organization that have impacted all areas of Eberle Druck. "With flexo printing, we've entered completely new territory and have to find out what is technically possible," says Schmutterer. He expects the initial learning curve will last about a year.

Prepress was certainly one of the first areas to be affected. Eberle Druck now outsources flexo-plate production but plans to bring it inhouse later this year to speed up the process.

For its pharmaceutical packaging customers, Eberle Druck employs many special colors, and again, UV flexo shines in the result. "It's when we are printing these special colors that flexo delivers a degree of color stability that is unheard of with offset printing," Schmutterer says. "This holds true from the very first to the last carton."

With the promising start that Eberle Druck has experienced so far, the converter is already thinking about increasing its flexo-print carton capacity with a new Gallus KM 510 press.

Boston, England-based Superior Labels Ltd. has purchased its second Combat 370 flexo press from manufacturer GIDUE S.p.A. (Turate, Italy). The new press replaces an older narrow-web flexo system due to significant anticipated increases in productivity and joins the converter's first 8-color Combat. The second Combat 370, a 6-color version with full UV-curing capability, primarily prints food, beverage and industrial labels.

"Apart from the obvious compatibility of tooling, we were so impressed with the first GIDUE press that the decision to purchase a second was easy," says Ray Sharp, managing director of Superior Labels. "The ability to run different substrates also gives us the flexibility to look at new market areas that were previously closed to us."

Unusual to the Combat 370 are independent drives at both printing and diecutting (Double-Drive) functions. The unique geometry of the GIDUE Flower™ printhead means that changeovers are fast and simple. GIDUE designed the printhead with input from customers in the field, which means it is truly operator-inspired.

"The ergonomic design of the printheads means make-ready procedures are very much operator-friendly," adds Sharp. "Feedback from the operators running the first Combat was extremely positive as to both simplicity of operation and organized work procedures."

Leading British p-s tape and label printer LMT has installed another Mark Andy (St. Louis) 2200 press at its production plant in Orpington, Kent, UK, "to meet the increasing demand for the quality offered by UV-flexo," says joint managing director Julian Lee. The new 10-in., 6-color system is the family company's third Mark Andy since 1995.

Labelexpo 95 was the inspiration for LMT's first Mark Andy purchase. A 6-color, water-based 2200 press, the Mark Andy paid for itself within two years, according to Lee, and began the shift in company emphasis from tape to labels. The growing label division, managed by Philip Wolfson, includes the recent addition of an extra sales representative to handle customers for the 2200's work capacity.

"We needed to diversify our business, and the Mark Andy presses provide us with the opportunity to consolidate our existing customer base and enter new markets," Lee adds.

Founded in 1966, and best known for its Prima brand range of p-s tapes, LMT today prints around 100,000 rolls of tape each month in its 35,000-sq-ft plant. LMT also imports substantial quantities of preprinted, custom tapes from Italy as well as the whole range of non-printed tapes from Europe and China. LMT supplies all industries. Although most of its labels are still printed on paper-based substrates, LMT is moving quickly into film-based structures.

"It totally exceeded our expectations. The registration is incredibly tight," says Pat Montefusco.

The plant manager for Carol Stream, IL-based Packaging Personified, Inc., is talking about his company's new Comexi America (Feeding Hills, MA) FB 2108 CNC GL flexo press. Its 57.5-in., 8-color gearless-CI system was installed in late 2003 at the flex-pack converter's facility. The maker of plain and printed bags and rollstocks primarily serves the paper/plastic-goods, bakery, frozen food, produce, tortilla, ice and pet-food industries. Ninety percent of its work is surface printing on thin-gauge polyethylene films.

"We wanted to expand our capacity, but we also wanted to heighten our capabilities," Montefusco continues. "We could never have run anything this high-quality on our older presses, and they're only five years old."

Packaging Personified has been able to achieve 120-line-screen printing at 600 fpm and is shooting for 133-plus, Montefusco says. The new press is outfitted with Harper Corp. (Charlotte, NC) 800-line-screen anilox sleeves for process work and employs Rossini North America (Buford, GA) print sleeves.

The FB 2108's sleeve system uses cantilevered plate and anilox mandrels supported on both sides during operation. This concept allows quick replacement of sleeves for shorter downtime, says Comexi. Change-overs are also enhanced by computerized job-recall and an integrated washup system for anilox sleeves, doctor blades and hoses.

"The Comexi holds tension beautifully. Its high-quality printing allows us to go after customers we never would have approached before," he says.

Packagers of snacks, cheese, pasta, condiments, processed meats, coffee and crackers—the long-time customers of flex-pack converter Kendall Packaging Corp.—are the ultimate beneficiaries of the company's new 10-color flexo press. More colorful, high-quality printing from the 52-in., gearless-CI Novoflex® system, supplied by Windmoeller & Hoelscher Corp. (Lincoln, RI), will result from the fall 2003 purchase.

Operating since 1948, Kendall today provides complete package-manufacturing services from graphic design and flexo process printing to solventless laminating and reclosable-zipper application. Finished products include rollstock, bags, standup pouches, shaped pouches, and metallized and high-performance barrier films. Kendall installed the new W&H press at its Jefferson, WI, plant in September. At presstime, the Novoflex had just been cranked up to run 24/7.

"We installed an 8-color PCMC Vision II press at our Pittsburg, KS, facility back in 2000," says Eric Erickson, president of Kendall. "Our plan for 2004 was to balance the two plants' capabilities. Going with a 10-color press was as much market-driven as it was a technical issue to offer customers that high level of printing.

"We were sold on W&H's reputation and proven record of gearless press installations," he continues. "We felt it was an important investment in those two additional print decks."

The Novoflex's gearless, AC-servo drives provide an infinitely-variable repeat range of 11-¾ to 31-½ in. and a maximum run speed of 1,300 fpm. Automatic bearings for plate cylinders and anilox-roll sleeves allow faster changeovers. It can be outfitted with air shafts or a Multishaft system so that all available printing-sleeve designs can be used.

Similar to the Glenroy installation (below), Kendall's new press is linked to a catalytic-thermal oxidizer from MEGTEC Systems (DePere, WI) to destroy VOC emissions and also features AVT video-web inspection. An added bonus of Kendall's Novoflex is its optional Turbo-Clean® automatic inking and washup system for anilox rolls and ink-circulation equipment.

Busing tables isn't exactly the most glamorous job, but that doesn't mean it can't be a little colorful—as in decoratively flexo-printed disposable wipes. "We print red stripes down the length of our foodservice wipers that are sold to restaurants," says Tracy Duncan, process engineer for Brownsville, TN-based IFC Disposables, Inc.

A division of Cascades Tissue Group, IFC Disposables installed a Model 1830 flexo printer from Bell-Mark Corp. (Pine Brook, NJ) in July 2003. The red stripes are printed in water-based ink via an offline operation onto IFC's basic-aperture, nonwoven material. The finished Busboy® brand foodservice towels are washable, reusable and ultimately disposable.

Cascades Tissue Group converts a wide variety of sanitary-paper products under its own trademarks as well as private-label brands. Commercial and industrial product lines include New Horizon, North River, Décor and Perkins.

"Our competitors were adding stripes to their wipes to give the wipes a different look," Duncan says. "We switched to the printed stripe to keep up with our competitors."

When flex-pack converter Glenroy, Inc., did the equation for increasing both the capacity and capabilities of its flexo-printing operations, the solution came to "10"—as in a 10-color, gearless CI-flexo press. The Menomonee Falls, WI-based company installed its new 50-in. Infiniti® supplied by Paper Converting Machine Co. (Green Bay, WI) last December.

Established in 1965, Glenroy converts printed and non-printed flex packs for the medical, pharmaceutical, food and personal-care product industries. It also produces thermal-laminating films as well as metallized films for the balloon market. The Infiniti, with a 14- to 32-in. infinitely-variable repeat range, runs Glenroy's coated and uncoated papers, polyester, cellophane and nylon substrates, and PET/foil/poly laminated structures.

"The press was added for multiple reasons, such as to expand our offerings to our customers with added color capability," says Bill Kopecky, flexo print manager for Glenroy. "We currently have 6- and 8-color CI capability. The added two decks will allow us to expand to the 10-color market, plus give us a backup press."

The servo-driven, print- and anilox-sleeved press has been designed for 100-percent capture of VOCs during printing, Kopecky says. It exhausts into a regenerative thermal oxidizer for VOC destruction. "The press was part of a total package designed to take us to the next level of environmental safety, emission control and quality," he says.

Other subsystems include automatic viscosity-control units that are hard-piped directly from ink-supply drums; video web-inspection and defect-detection equipment from Advanced Vision Technology (Atlanta); and PCMC's patented eXtreme™ dryers.

Less than two weeks after installation, PCMC had trained Glenroy's staff and turned the press over for continued trials and production. As of late March, the Infiniti was already quite busy, turning out printed webs in a 12-hr shift, seven days a week.

CONVERTERS:

EBERLE DRUCK, 43/1-865-3410, www.eberle.co.at

GLENROY, INC., 262/255-4422, www.glenroy.com

IFC DISPOSABLES, 800/432-9473, www.cascades.com

KENDALL PACKAGING CORP., 800/237-0951, www.kendallpkg.com

LMT LTD., 44/1689-816111, www.prima-labels.com

PACKAGING PERSONIFIED, INC., 630/653-1655, www.packagingpersonified.com

SUPERIOR LABELS LTD., 44/1205-820757, www.superiorlabels.co.uk

SUPPLIERS:

AVT, 770/541-9781, www.avt-inc.com

BELL-MARK CORP., 973/882-0202, www.bell-mark.com

COMEXI AMERICA, INC., 413/789-3800, www.comexi.com

GALLUS, INC., 215/677-9600, www.gallus.ch

GIDUE SPA, 39/02-966-8181, www.gidue.com

HARPER CORP., 800/438-3111, www.harperimage.com

MARK ANDY, INC., 800/700-MARK, www.markandy.com

MEGTEC CORP., 800/862-6943, www.megtec.com

PAPER CONVERTING MACHINE CO., 920/494-5601, www.pcmc.com

ROSSINI NORTH AMERICA, 678/482-0835, www.rossini-spa.it

WINDMOELLER & HOELSCHER CORP., 800/854-8702, www.whcorp.com