Live demo of next generation flexo printing at Brussels

The next generation of flexo printing capabilities will be presented by Kodak, MPS and Reproflex 3 when they team up for an exclusive day of live presentations to show Labelexpo Europe visitors how to “Do More With Less” at the MPS booth Q40 in Hall 11, on September 25. Continuous demonstrations will highlight how leading prepress and press technologies come together to deliver outstanding, consistent print quality at the lowest delivered cost. These demonstrations will dynamically present how impactful offset-like quality can be achieved cost effectively and efficiently with narrow web UV flexo—with no compromises and without the use of spot colour inks.

“Visitors will see incredibly challenging designs being produced that have outstanding shelf impact without the use of spot colour inks. Kodak has a deep understanding of both flexo and offset printing and we understand that the end-users, the brands just want the highest quality at the lowest cost, regardless of the print process. Our revolutionary KODAK FLEXCEL NX System and KODAK SPOTLESS Flexographic Solution provide the technology to make that possible,” comments Olivier Claude, General Manager for Print & Vice President Commercial Business EAMER, Kodak.

Throughout the day, leading narrow-web press manufacturer MPS will host the 15-minute live print demonstrations and presentations that will showcase how its latest innovations in press technology complement the Kodak prepress technologies and enable fast changeovers and unparalleled colour stability.

Eric Hoendervangers, commercial director of MPS Systems BV, based in The Netherlands, commented, “High-quality dots play an important role in the Spotless Printing solution. Our Crisp.Dot technology guarantees a minimum of dot gain, full round dots, solid ink coverage and sharper printing of smaller fonts. Additionally, our Multi-Drive technology provides perfect registration for a broad range of materials, which is essential in achieving a stable and spotless colour gamut. Spotless Printing is all about efficiency, and goes hand in hand with quality, mirroring the foundations on which MPS flexo presses are designed and built.”

The designs selected, which target challenging applications in the personal care and household product sector, would normally require at least seven or eight colours to print with traditional flexo. To really push the envelope, Kodak’s demonstrations will not only print without the use of spot colour inks, but will also print at 300lpi.

“We carefully selected designs that would normally be a real challenge for flexo,” said Andrew Hewitson, joint managing director, Reproflex 3, whose company is providing the prepress expertise for the collaborative demonstration. “We deal with these challenges every day and want to show how it really is possible to eliminate spot colour inks from the workflow and still overcome the traditional concerns of colour gamut, colour stability and registration. A couple of the labels would normally be considered ‘offset’ designs, but it is the final design for a laundry care range that will prove to be the most talked about example. It will be printed both with four-colour process and seven-colour process on the same web, and visitors will be asked to consider whether the extra colours are worth the extra cost. We think they’ll be surprised at what they’ll see!”

After the demo, visitors can take label samples and check them against proofs that will be displayed on the booth while rolls of labels and samples will be available for viewing at both the MPS and Kodak booths throughout the show.