Grand Corp: achieving excellence in the corrugated market with DuPont Cyrel Easy plates

Cyrel EASY EPC is a soft digital plate with a built-in flat top dot developed especially for the post-print corrugated printers and was commercialized globally from October 2016. It simplifies the prepress process with built-in flat top digital dots, resulting in increased productivity and consistency. With more than a decade of experience in professional die-cut molding and serving a wide range of industries in Taiwan, China and Vietnam, Grand Corp Co Ltd started its first flexographic photopolymer printing plate operations in 2005 with direct laser engraving equipment. They subsequently moved to a solid photopolymer plate-making system and liquid photopolymer system.

Left to right: Dennis Tan (DuPont), Scott Iggo (DuPont), Zhang Zhuzhen (finance controller, Grand Corp), Siming Luo (DuPont), Sherman Liu (CEO, Grand Corp)As part of their vision to improve flexo print quality with key converters in Vietnam – particularly in the high-end corrugated industry – the company strives for continuous improvement. The recent addition of completely new prepress and plate making capabilities through a Spark CDI5080 with HD digital imaging system from Esko and a 500 line flexographic plate processing system from G&J Degraf, the company achieved a milestone in their commitment to the increasing demands for quality in the country.

With a strong team and full support from business partners, Sherman Liu, general manager – Grand Corp Co Ltd Vietnam, was pleased with this achievement and excited to support the demand for flexo printing in the future.

Challenge…

In Vietnam’s fast-moving consumer goods market, consumers are accustomed to purchasing food and beverages by the box. Consequently, the requirements from brand owners for high quality printing of corrugated boxes is relatively high. Brand owners need corrugated boxes to have eye-catching designs and graphics that appeal to consumers.

EPC clearly outperforms the conventional digital plate in terms of delivering better vignette, balancing printing pressure and reducing flutingPrinting resolution requirements are increasing to a quality only achieved thus far by offset printing. A flexographic plate that can deliver high resolution printing enables a more sustainable process to achieve the quality needed. Many jobs have artwork requiring a balanced performance plate that can provide high solid ink density, as well as exceptional highlights and vignettes. Moreover, converters are using BE board for most jobs, making it critical to reduce the impact of fluting on printing. To meet the brand owner and converter’s goals, Grand Corp needed a simplified solution without any additional investment or change in workflow.

Solution…

Since its launch in 2015, the Cyrel EASY flat top dot platform has demonstrated excellent performance in solid ink density and smooth vignettes in flexible packaging and tag/label segments. To meet the increasing demand for high resolution printing in the corrugated market, Cyrel EASY EPC plate was developed specifically for corrugated post-print applications to meet customer’s increasing expectations.

Grand Corp decided to adopt high definition resolution flat top dot technology and chose DuPont Cyrel EASY EPC plates. The plates easily integrated into their current platemaking workflow with no additional process steps or equipment investments. By building flat top dots directly into the plate, Cyrel EASY EPC delivers the highest quality image reproduction while minimizing the negative impact of fluting on printing in a wide variety of corrugated boards.

“My customers are satisfied with the advances of Cyrel EASY EPC. They see smooth solid ink transfer with less pin holes. More importantly, it is much easier for them to achieve the print quality we see with offset, achieving up to 120lpi with vignettes fading to zero while minimizing fluting effect. We believe it will definitely help our customers make a visual impact in the marketplace,” said Sherman Liu, general manager – Grand Corp. “There are numerous flat-top-dot technology platforms in the market, but we chose the Cyrel EASY EPC platform for its simplified workflow as it easily integrated into our current workflow without any adjustments or investments. With the Cyrel EASY platform, it offers wider plate making latitude.”

Multi-fold benefits…

Grand Corp is the first tradeshop globally to process and test the EASY EPC plate. They successfully delivered a commercial job with their strategic converter and noted the following benefits of using EASY EPC:

• Highest quality image reproduction up to 120 lpi with HD.
• Significant reduction of fluting even on BE board.
• More even solid ink density with less pressure.
• Excellent vignette and fade to zero.
• Improved durability on press.