To better compete for business in both its national and international markets, Chilean flexible-packaging printer and converter Edelpa had to reduce printing defects, both for external purposes (to eliminate customer rejections) and for internal needs (to reduce waste during the production process). The company was looking for an automatic method to preventively detect defects while taking the necessary corrective actions during printing. In seeking out an on-line automatic print-inspection solution, Edelpa chose equipment from Advanced Vision Technology (www.avt-inc.com). Since mid-2005, the company has integrated nine AVT PrintVision/Jupiter platforms for its plants in Santiago, Chile, and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

For more than 30 years, Edelpa, also known as Envases del Pacifico S.A., has been a leader in the flex-pack mass market for Chilean and international food and consumer-product companies. Its customer list includes producing rollstock, wrappers, bags, pouches and labels for such global brands as Nestlé, Colgate, Henkel, S.C. Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Unilever.

Among Edelpa's arsenal of printing and converting machinery are 10 blown-film extrusion lines, of which six are multilayer coextruders for high-barrier substrates; nine presses—up to nine colors in gravure and eight colors in flexography; and five solvent and solventless laminators to unite film, foil and paper via adhesives, wax and extrusion-coating. Annual production capacity is approximately 5.8 billion sq feet in flexible packaging (two-thirds printed gravure, one-third in flexo).

“With easy installation and excellent training of our staff, the AVT solution implementations at our plants were fast and quickly translated into great quality improvements, an increased competitive edge and higher customer satisfaction,” says Edelpa corporate technical director Oscar Jaime.

“AVT's automatic inspection systems have far surpassed our expectations. Our customer claims have diminished by 15 percent, and our internal waste has been reduced by 46 percent—from 4.8 to 2.2 percent.”

The AVT process-control solution, the PrintVision/Jupiter, uses its Intelligent Image Processing software engine to automatically detect process faults including spots, streaks, color variation, mis-register and misprints enabling operators to take remedial action before waste is run. Sensitivity can be independently set for each defect type, providing the operator with maximum control of the process, ensuring that all process defects are detected.

Add-on modules for the PrintVision/Jupiter help meet the challenge of short-run printing by smoothing makeready tasks and reducing setup times. The pRegister module automatically brings up to 10 colors into register reportedly in less than a minute with substrate waste cut to less than 350 ft. The Presco module is said to set both plate and anilox-roll pressure for 10 colors in only 3 mins, cutting material waste to less than 650 ft.

Because the PrintVision/Jupiter continuously monitors print quality, the operator can run the press at a higher speed while assuring consistent product quality, Jaime adds.“With the AVT system, we were confident enough to increase the speed of our presses by 12 to 24 percent, depending on the machine, and to increase the length of our printed rolls by 75 percent—from an average of 26,000 to 46,000 ft—without having to stop for time-consuming roll changes,” Jaime says.

The faster output of higher-quality printed packaging via the AVT inspection units will serve Edelpa well as it expands its customer base across the globe.