Join Esko, Comexi and Asahi Photoproducts to learn more about the latest flexo platemaking and printing technologies. Within 45 minutes, we will create a print ready flexo plate while explaining you more about the key technologies used to achieve outstanding print quality and consistency. See and experience the whole platemaking process from prepress, plate imaging, LED back- and front exposure to developing the plate.
They will be joined by Asahi Photoproducts to demonstrate the whole platemaking process with AWP™ water-washed plates compatible with water, solvent and UV/EB ink curing systems.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Best in class print ready plates within 45 minutes
Standardized and simplified processes enable in-house platemaking
Unmatched quality through LED plate exposure
Alternative to solvent based process solutions: water-based
There will be a live Q&A session at the end of the presentation.
Can’t make it to the live session? Register and you will receive the recording.
Chinese label manufacturer is second printer worldwide to install innovative solution that reduces 12 steps to 1 in flexographic platemaking process
Tokyo, Japan & Brussels, Belgium, January 11, 2022. Asahi Photoproducts, today reported that Shanghai Hengze Printing Company is in the process of installing a brand-new CrystalCleanConnect flexographic platemaking line. This Chinese label manufacturer had already adopted Asahi AWP™-DEF water-washable plates to boost quality and improve its competitive positioning. The addition of the CrystalCleanConnect line, and a switch to Asahi AWP™-DEW water-washable plates that are optimized for use with CrystalCleanConnect, will take the company’s productivity, efficiency and sustainability to the next level, positioning it even more favorably in the highly competitive Chinese market. The company was founded in 2001 as a letterpress shop producing labels for products in daily use among the Chinese population. Shanghai Hengze offers complete end-to-end services under one roof, from product design and prepress to the finished product, enabling a high level of customization and personalized service for its customers.
“Over the last two years, since we implemented the Asahi AWP™ CleanPrint water-washable plates, we have seen excellent quality improvement results,” said Mr. Li Xiaocheng, founder of Hengze. “When we learned about the added value CrystalCleanConnect could bring to our operation, we could hardly wait to get started. We are also very pleased to be an early adopter of this unique, highly productive and innovative solution.”
CrystalCleanConnect was developed as a result of a collaboration among Asahi Photoproducts, ESKO and Kongsberg. It brings together key hardware and software technologies from all organizations to deliver a highly efficient and sustainable mount-ready water-washable flexo plate for the packaging industry, bringing a new level of standardization to flexographic printing. CrystalCleanConnect offers a number of breakthrough advantages, from design to print, including:
A fully automated and connected process that begins with the operator loading plate material and pressing a button to initiate the process. Plates are then imaged, developed and cut in-line in a single integrated process, delivering mount-ready plates at the back end.
Significantly reduced total cost of ownership. By reducing steps from 12 to 1, minimizing the need for operator intervention and automating the entire workflow, not only are labor costs reduced but there is less wastage and reduced opportunity for error. Plates are also produced faster than with other methods, increasing throughput and decreasing time to market for flexo printed products.
Excellence in print quality consistency. Automation of a proven platemaking process delivers plates that are more consistent, ultimately making the pressroom more efficient and cost-effective.
A best-in-class environmental footprint that includes less waste, elimination of VOC-based washout chemicals associated with solvent-based platemaking, reduced energy use, and more.
As digital technologies progressed in offset, the printing industry saw a rapid migration of plate making from outside resources to on-site production.
The same thing is positioned to occur in flexography, as technology has evolved to streamline and simplify the plate making process. Flexographic converters in the labels and packaging space are in a growth business. Still, they face a number of challenges in a highly competitive marketplace. At the same time, they confront challenges from alternative technologies such as offset and gravure printing. Customers are increasingly looking for shorter and more varied runs, faster delivery times, and, of course, a competitive cost structure. Plus, the interest in a more sustainable environmental footprint on the part of brands and consumers is growing.
There are a number of technological developments underway in flexography that will help flexographic printers meet these tests and retain existing customers while also acquiring new ones. One such development is being demonstrated through the Turnkey Project, hosted by Comexi, in which Asahi Photoproducts is a partner. The Turnkey Project is designed to demonstrate the value of bringing flexographic plate making in-house to flexible packaging converters. Today’s technology makes it easy.
For the flexographic printing operation, bringing plate making in-house is one way to improve operational efficiency by providing more control over the cost, scheduling and timeframes for making plates. It also makes it faster for replacement plates to be made when required, reducing press downtime and keeping jobs running through the plant more efficiently. But in the past, making high-quality flexographic plates could be tricky, deterring many printers from bringing the operation in-house. This project demonstrates how that is changing.
Beyond this project, our industry is focused on bringing even more automation and operational efficiency to the flexographic prepress process, adding to the contributions already made to improved quality, profitability and sustainability.
The faster and more efficiently a press-ready print form can be generated, the more flexibility a plant will have in what it can produce. But as always, quality is a key consideration and must be balanced with efficiency for a holistic approach to the process of producing press-ready print forms.
By removing even more manual touches from the flexographic plate making process, we will be able to deliver a more efficient and profitable prepress process, as well as a high level of standardization through automation, thereby reducing the skill level required for operators in an environment where skilled prepress operators are often hard to find.
Among the resulting benefits, the process speeds production times, allowing companies to produce more jobs in a day with the same or less labor, while simultaneously reducing the opportunity for costly errors along the way. That’s the vision the next generation of flexographic prepress solutions will be about.
Turnkey Project Details
An important milestone on the route toward this vision for Asahi and several other industry partners is our participation in the Comexi Turnkey Project at its Manel Xifra Boada Technology Center in Girona, Spain. The project features water wash equipment and water washable plates with CleanPrint technology. Water wash processors are generally considered to be more in harmony with the environment than conventional solvent systems. Many, in fact, credit them with producing plates that achieve the highest level of quality in flexographic printing.
In addition, the water wash process is much faster than solvent. While it may take up to two hours for solvent-based plates to dry, Asahi’s complete AWP plate making process, serving as one example, delivers a plate to the mounting department in less than one hour. That same example plate is specifically engineered to transfer all remaining ink to the printed substrate, reducing makeready time and press cleaning stops.
The Manel Xifra Boada Technology Center—Comexi CTec—specializes in training, advice and technical process support for the printing and converting sectors of the flexible packaging industry. It has incorporated into its portfolio this new service, whose objective is to help flexographic printing operations integrate the prepress process, from ground zero, into their own facilities.
The project culminates once the client independently completes the prepress process while adhering to all defined quality standards. The estimated time to complete the project is approximately six months.
Word on Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
In any industry, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a measurement of the performance of a machine. It’s a calculation—OEE = Availability x Performance x Quality—that delivers a percentage. OEE is a fact-based way to measure the efficiency of your operation and identify ways to continuously improve it over time.
Print production inefficiencies can occur due to a combination of elements, such as printing shift length, press makeready time, press stop downtimes, actual press speed, run lengths and total material waste.
The OEE calculation provides focus and simplicity to decision making, in respect to availability, performance and quality produced. Having measured all three elements, a focus for improvement in the OEE percentage figure can be established. The higher the OEE percentage is, the more effective your printing shop becomes. The higher the OEE, the better the impact is to the bottom line. Plus, inherent in a higher OEE is an increase in customer satisfaction and retention.
Calculating OEE is not rocket science; it’s easy to understand and involves calculating press availability, performance and quality. For more information on the calculation of OEE, request an easy-to-use OEE calculator by contacting CTGA today.
As the technology for flexographic printing continues to evolve, both quality and efficiency are improving. In order to remain competitive, flexographic printers must stay informed about the latest developments.
Once a sort of “halfway point” between offset and gravure, flexo has come into its own in recent years, in many cases taking volume that might otherwise have gone to one of those print processes, or even digital printing. This is due to its improved quality and ability to profitably produce the shorter runs the market often demands.
Another big change is around environmental sustainability issues, of increasing importance to many brands. Historically, most of the sustainability concerns revolved around the plate making process:
Was the process using water, solvent or thermal imaging?
How much solvent and energy were required to make plates?
What types of toxic chemicals were used?
What were the costs associated with managing, storing and disposing of them?
Recent customer experience takes the discussion in another direction: With the right plates, many environmental issues are minimized—not in plate making, but in the printing process. At the same time, quality goals can easily be met and press uptime can be significantly improved. This is important for several reasons:
With a higher uptime standard, a flexo press will deliver more throughput. More jobs and more volume through the press equates to more revenue and profit
When the press is down because plates need to be changed or cleaned, not only is more time consumed, but also more waste is generated as the press once again comes up to color
Less print production time translates to less energy usage, improving the environmental footprint of the print job and helping keep costs in line
Left, a classic plate with a more hydrophilic surface; right, a Clean Transfer Technology plate with a more hydrophobic surface
Water-Washable Plate Benefits
The challenge for plate manufacturers has always been to create a more environmentally friendly plate without losing the benefits and advantages of quality and efficiency. Water-washable plates were developed to meet that challenge and to help printers and converters approach their operations from a much more holistic perspective. In addition to delivering excellent quality, these plates ensure a lower CO2 footprint in print production with a much higher press OEE (Overall Equipment Efficiency). Average improvement in OEE with water-washable plates is 33 percent.
In flexographic printing, highlights can usually cause two potential problems. The first is the highlight breaking point, which prevents a vignette from printing smoothly to zero. Photopolymer flexo plates usually start printing highlights at 5 percent to 8 percent due to dot gain, in the best cases. This means that gradations in vignettes suddenly break at that level, producing a visual contrast with the substrate; a visible breaking point or line well recognized as a print fault in the industry.
This breaking point is virtually eliminated using water-wash technology due to its smaller dot size, low dot gain and high dot stability, especially when used in combination with the latest generation of screening technologies. Extensive plate trials and live production jobs have proven the plate’s ability to print down to 2 percent to 3 percent using classical round dot screening. With the latest screening technologies, the plate is able to reproduce a vignette fade to zero.
Noteworthy benefits listing out as improved press uptime and OEE, reduced waste, profitable production of short runs and faster time to market are making flexography more competitive against offset, gravure and digital print. Industry awards continue to bring the process validity and forge flexo’s recognition as packaging’s preferred print method.
Gateway Packaging: OEE Up 53%
With less downtime, faster run-up to color, minimum waste, lower energy costs and consistent quality throughout the run, water-wash technology is improving flexography’s sustainability footprint. The experience at ProAmpac’s Gateway Packaging illustrates these points.
Many now say plate making is the central focus of the bigger picture view of flexography’s environmental sustainability initiatives. Here is one story to illustrate the point.
Based in White House, TN, Gateway Packaging (who ProAmpac acquired in May 2018) is a high-end printer/packaging converter and the largest pet food packaging provider in North America. The company is continually seeking ways to improve products and solve problems for its customers. To meet that goal, Gateway recently completely revamped its flexo plate making process.
“With the variety of flexographic plates and plate making solutions available in the market, we wanted to do a thorough evaluation to ensure our investment decision was the best possible choice,” said Tharrin Akers, prepress manager. “With that in mind, we benchmarked solutions from the leading players, ultimately bringing our selection to two, including Asahi Photoproducts. As a final test, we ran several production jobs using plates to compare efficiency with our current process, and we were very pleased with the results.”
A focus on quick, consistent and highest quality creation of plates with Asahi AWP™ flexographic plates
Tokyo/Brussels, August 2, 2018 – Asahi Photoproducts, a pioneer in flexographic photopolymer plate development, today announced it will be exhibiting at Labelexpo Americas 2018, scheduled for 25 to 27 September at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. Asahi will be located in Stand F6479 at the show. The company will be showing its AWP™ family of water-washable flexographic plate solutions featuring Clean Transfer Technology, including its new AWP™ -DEW plate with washout speeds 2.5 times faster than previous plates, making it ideal for on-demand platemaking and a more efficient flexographic operation in even the busiest plants.
“At the show, we will be showing flexographic print samples printed using AWP™ plates imaged on an Esko Crystal XPS system whose simultaneous UV main and back exposure produces highly consistent digital flexo plates,” said Makoto Nagata, Sales Manager Overseas for Asahi. “We are looking forward to welcoming visitors and sharing information about the possibilities created with the quick, consistent, and highest quality creation of plates using the Asahi AWP™ family of plates.”
Asahi experts will also be available to speak with visitors about the Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) benefits of Asahi AWP™ plates. “Printing operations stand to reap huge benefits from moving to AWP™ plates,” adds Mr. Nagata. “Companies like Czech-based Colognia Press are seeing press uptimes of more than 50{402c2385650ceb937fc5dfccd4761ceed5dd330756c4d730d625389f210d2cf9}, up from 25{402c2385650ceb937fc5dfccd4761ceed5dd330756c4d730d625389f210d2cf9} with their previous plates, and even report running a 22-hour job with one set of plates, no stops, and with very consistent quality from beginning to end. In our experience, AWP™ plates make these types of results very achievable for flexo printers.”
Tokyo, Japan & Brussels, Belgium, May 29, 2018 – Asahi Photoproducts, a pioneer in flexographic photopolymer plate development, today announced it will be attending Gallus Innovation Days for the first time. The event takes place in St. Gallen, Switzerland, from 26 to 28 June 2018, the third Open House event hosted by the well-known Swiss manufacturer. Asahi Photoproducts will be showing its AWP™ DEF/DEW plate solutions featuring Clean Transfer Technology, exhibiting in Hall 1 as a Gallus partner.
“Gallus is without doubt a leading manufacturer of flexo presses for labels, continually broadening its portfolio,” says Dr. Dieter Niederstadt, Technical Marketing Manager at Asahi. “We believe there is great potential for synergies with Gallus in terms of innovation and quality. Our popular water washable AWP™ plates are industry leaders in UV flexo printing and are especially suitable for printing operations who wish to produce their plates in-house.”
Asahi’s Clean Transfer Technology has been developed with fixed colour palette printing in mind, delivering the quality and precise register this printing technique requires. All future Asahi plates will be equipped with Clean Transfer Technology, delivering the outstanding quality and overall equipment efficiency (OEE) demanded by leading converters in a highly competitive market.
Asahi’s AWP™ DEF/DEW plate technology provides a viable alternative to conventional flexo printing plates. Its water washable printing plate technology does not require high temperatures or VOC-based solvents. It provides high register accuracy, making it particularly suitable for printing with a fixed colour palette and enabling odourless production. In addition to saving time and money and reducing waste, it also supports energy savings, whilst assuring exceptional quality and brilliant prints.
Clean Transfer for real-life flexo applications
Colognia Press, based in the Czech Republic, has recently discovered how AWP™ plates with Clean Transfer Technology can lead to significantly higher productivity in flexo printing. The company uses Gallus presses and water washable flexo plates and was able to increase machine availability by 110%, simply by switching to an Asahi plate production system. The previous flexo printing plates had caused lengthy downtimes for plate cleaning and changing. The Asahi solution enables Colognia Press to print practically any job up to several kilometres long without having to stop the machine. Even a 22-hour job ran without interruption from start to finish, maintaining consistent quality with the same set of plates.
Tokyo, Japan & Brussels, Belgium, May 24, 2018 – Asahi Photoproducts, a pioneer in flexographic photopolymer plate development, today announced it will be attending EskoWorld for the first time. Asahi will be located in the Innovation Center at the show, scheduled for 5 to 7 June at the Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort and Spa in San Antonio, Texas.
“In our fast-paced and rapidly evolving industry, efficiency, waste reduction and speed to market are critical,” said Stephan Doppelhammer, Asahi Photoproducts Europe Business Development Manager. “By partnering with Esko, we bring together solutions from two world-class companies to create a faster, more efficient and more consistent workflow in flexographic platemaking. Esko Equinox is ideal for converting separations to fixed palette printing, while Esko’s Crystal technology reduces the number of platemaking steps required and is making the process more consistent. By adding Asahi’s AWP™ water washable plates with Clean Transfer Technology to the mix, Asahi and Esko customers can take OEE to a brand-new level of efficiency while boosting print quality and reducing their environmental footprint.”
Voice of the Customer
Gateway Packaging, a leading high-end printer/ packaging converter and the largest pet food packaging provider in North America, recently restructured its entire platemaking process with Asahi Photoproducts solutions as the core element. The company performed extensive testing that led up to the final decision. “When running the Asahi AWP™ Clean Transfer plates,” explained Tharrin Akers, the company’s Prepress Manager, “we were able to run the press at a 17{402c2385650ceb937fc5dfccd4761ceed5dd330756c4d730d625389f210d2cf9} higher speed – 1,640 feet per minute (from 426 m / min. to 500 m / min) – and only had to stop for plate cleaning once. And that only required cleaning two plates, consuming 20 minutes. The result was a total production time of 7.2 hours instead of 11 hours in the past and an astonishing 53{402c2385650ceb937fc5dfccd4761ceed5dd330756c4d730d625389f210d2cf9} improvement in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) over our previous process.”
Clean Transfer Technology: The Details
A feature of many of Asahi’s flexographic printing plates, Clean Transfer Technology enables a clean ink transfer and prevents ink accumulating on the plate surfaces and shoulders in screen areas. This leads to fewer cleaning intervals and reduced press downtime, as well as significant quality improvements. Precise plate register achieved with Asahi AWP™ plates ensures very high quality process printing with a fixed color palette, minimizing the need to use and manage spot color inks.
Clean Transfer Technology allows a kiss-touch printing pressure setting. It makes use of low plate surface tension, made possible by a specially engineered Asahi polymer chemistry, to inhibit liquid flow. The ink forms a globule, with a large contact angle and high pinning point. This results in a cleaner and more homogeneous ink transfer from plate to substrate, helping flexographic printers meet the ever-increasing quality demands of their customers.
Sam Yamamoto of Asahi, said, “At the show, our experts will be helping the visitors better understand how Asahi AWP plates can improve environmental sustainability, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and organisational profitability without any compromise on quality.”
According to Asahi, Clean Transfer Technology is a technology which enables clean ink transfer and prevents ink accumulating on the plate surfaces and shoulders in screen areas and thus resulting in fewer cleaning intervals and reduced press downtime.
Asahi will also talk about fixed colour palette printing, which uses a up to seven inks and thereby eliminates the use of spot colours.
Yamamoto explained, “Because it uses a fixed set of inks, there is no wash-up required between jobs, and combo jobs are made easier. Also, there is significantly less waste in the printing process, improving throughput and productivity.”
“This is the future of flexography, especially in label printing where digital printing has made significant inroads; it favourably positions flexography to compete with digital printing for the short run jobs,” Yamamoto added.
Tokyo, Japan & Brussels, Belgium, March 20, 2018 – Asahi Photoproducts, a pioneer in flexographic photopolymer plate development, today reported it will be showing its AWP™ line of water-washable flexographic plate solutions featuring its Clean Transfer Technology at Labelexpo Southeast Asia 2018. The show is a brand-new event in the Labelexpo Global Series. Asahi will be located on Stand D36 at the show, scheduled for 10 to 12 May 2018 in Bitec, Bangkok. Joining Asahi at the event will be its important distributor, Nagase who supports Asahi in Southeast Asia market.
“Labelexpo events around the globe are an excellent platform for introducing labels & packaging converters and brands to new and innovative technologies, and we are delighted to be participating in the first ever Southeast Asian Labelexpo,” states Sam Yamamoto, Senior Sales Manager for Asahi Asia & Pacific Region. “It is especially good timing for us to introduce that region to our environmentally sustainable water-washable plate technologies since governments there are gearing up to increase environmental regulations. At the show, our experts will be on hand to help visitors better understand how Asahi AWP™ plates can improve environmental sustainability, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and organizational profitability without any compromise in quality. Visitors to our stand will also be able to see printed application examples and get advice from our experts about the best plates for their individual needs.”
Asahi experts will also be available to speak with visitors about the benefits of fixed colour palette printing, which uses a fixed palette of up to seven inks to virtually eliminate the need for spot colour inks. Because it uses a fixed set of inks, there is no wash-up required between jobs, and combo jobs are made easier. In addition, there is significantly less waste in the printing process, improving throughput and productivity. Asahi plates with Clean Transfer Technology deliver the precise plate-to-plate register required to implement this printing process successfully. “In our opinion,” adds Mr. Yamamoto, “this is the future of flexography, especially in label printing where digital printing has made significant inroads; it favourably positions flexography to compete with digital printing for all but the very shortest runs. This will be especially beneficial in Southeast Asia as the label market there continues to mature.”
At the show…
At Labelexpo Southeast Asia, Asahi Photoproducts will be showing the AWP™-DEW plate solution, incorporating the renowned quality properties of AWP™-DEF plates with the addition of a faster plate processing speed, making this plate ideal for labels and packaging operations with higher plate throughput who are looking to achieve significant quality and OEE benefits.
Voice of the Customer
Colognia Press is a Czech-based label converter and satisfied Asahi customer who needed to find a way to improve OEE. “With the flexo plates we were using, we had excessive stop times to clean or replace plates,” says Bohdan Holona, Manager of Desktop Publishing. “For long-run jobs, this meant that half of the time to produce the job was downtime. And even for shorter runs, we were not happy with the consistency from beginning to end of the job, often requiring press stops to clean plates or otherwise adjust quality.” After looking at several alternate solutions, Holona reports the company chose to implement the Asahi AWP™ platemaking system. “Now,” he says, “We can run a full 10-kilometre job without stopping. We even ran a 22-hour job with one set of plates, no stops, and very consistent quality from beginning to end. It’s been amazing!”
Label Partners, located in Southern Australia, provides quality labels for many industries from wine, general food and beverage, fresh produce including poultry and dairy, through to the automotive, pharmaceutical and chemical sectors.
Partnerships are an important aspect of the company’s culture – with its customers, employees and suppliers. This includes acquiring the best technology and innovative materials to deliver the exceptional results its customers have come to depend on.
In addition to quality, the company is dedicated to delivering cost-effective and environmentally friendly solutions.
It was in pursuit these goals that Label Partners turned to its dealer, Jet Technologies, and Asahi Photoproducts to revamp its flexographic platemaking process.
At the Forefront of Narrow Web Flexo
Label Partners had been using digital water-washable plates for a number of years and had tried various systems and plates with mixed results. After doing its own investigations, trials and working with Jet Technologies on the Asahi AWP plate, the company made a decision in mid-2016 to take its processing capabilities in plate production to a new level and in the end, had no hesitation in its decision to purchase the Asahi AWPTM 2530 Combi all-in-one water-washable plate processor and Asahi AWPTM-DEF flexo plates. This compact all-in-one unit includes high UV output exposure, washout with automatic plate cleaning, solvent saturation analyzer, 4-drawer dryer and light finishing-post exposure drawer.
David McCloud, Managing Director of Label Partners, said, “We have always been at the forefront of narrow web Flexo and have grown our business dramatically over the past six years by using quality equipment and helping to pioneer water-wash plate technology in Australia. We were the first company in Australia to embrace the Asahi AWPTM system. The resulting cost-effective but very high quality digital plates consistently achieve a print result that compares favorably against most offset labels seen in the wine label market.”
Outstanding Support Brings Peace of Mind
Shane Gillespie, Label Partners’ Production Manager, has been pleased with the results. He reported, “Since the installation of the Asahi AWPTM processor, the quality and consistency of our platemaking equipment has completely streamlined the process of plate to press. Not only are we achieving amazing print results, but we now have a processor that, in our opinion, is able to produce plates of any level with a minimum of effort. It is extremely reliable, very functional and easy to maintain. The machine is so intelligent that if there is ever anything wrong, it shows where on the machine the problem is, and it can easily be identified and corrected. This unit consistently produces perfect printing plates time after time.”
Gillespie also made a point of commenting on the outstanding support Label Partners has received from both Jet Technologies and Asahi Photoproducts since the installation. “This kind of support is critical, especially when you are purchasing relatively new technology,” he said. “The unit has online connectivity added to its already extensive range of features, and that has given Label Partners peace of mind in knowing we are always very close to a solution should there be a problem.”
Label Partners expects the new system to cut current plate processing times in half, important in an environment with ever shorter production cycles and smaller lot sizes. “
Not All Polymers Are Created Equal
Gillespie also recognized that all polymers are not created equal, saying, “The Asahi AWPTM plate has shown us just how different polymers can be; they are definitely not all the same. This plate prints cleaner, releases ink more efficiently and will continue to produce these results longer than other plates on the market. And believe me, we have trialed just about everything there is to trial. These plates are so durable, you just take them out of the job bag, mount them and away they go again just like they came out of the processor for the first time. It is no wonder Asahi continues to win awards in both label and packaging markets all over the world.”
