Held every four years, Converflex has brought together the converting, package printing, labelling and tissue industries for three decades. The show takes place this year in Milan on May 7 to 10, and here we look at some of the highlights that are planned for the 10th edition, including those presented at a recent press conference. By Neel Madsen.
The Converflex exhibition, which runs concurrently with Grafitalia – a show for the graphic arts, print media and communication industries – has a long and well established tradition as a global event for technology suppliers and manufacturers. The show will be held on May 7 to 10 at the FieraMilano exhibition complex, in the province of Rho, north-west of Milan city centre, well placed at the heart of northern Italy’s manufacturing and converting industry. In 2009, it attracted 258 exhibitors and had over 33,000 international visitors, 32% of whom came from outside Italy from up to 78 different countries.
Heads up
At the beginning of March, the European trade press gathered at the Ramada Plaza Hotel, in Milan, for a pre-show press conference held by Uteco Converting SpA, Kodak Italia, Camis, Re Controlli Industriali,Huber Italia, Gama Srl and BST Italia. The audience was welcomed by Sante Conselvan, president of the Italian flexo association, and one of the organisers of the conference. He said, ‘Converflex gives us the opportunity to consolidate our position in the flexo market.
The objective today is to show the results of these seven participating companies’ research and developments over the past 12 to 18 months.’ The show is hugely important to these companies and to the Italian flexo industry in general, much of which is situated within driving distance of the exhibition complex. Indeed, many suppliers take the opportunity to hosts open houses and transport customers from the show to their facilities for live demonstrations of machinery.
Hands off
Managing director of UK-based Eurograv, Mike Attard presented on behalf of Italian plate mounting machinery manufacturer, Camis. Mr Attard’s company is the worldwide distributor and works in close cooperation with Camis, developing and manufacturing a range of machine for automation of the plate mounting process. Mr Attard said, ‘While most of the flexo printing process is almost entirely automated, plate mounting is still done largely by hand and this causes a wealth of problems, such as trapped air bubbles which is a leading cause of printdefects. We need to remove the last manual operations that still remain.’
Correct tape application is vital and Camis offers the Taper Slide tape applicator as an option on its mounting equipment, such as the Iriflex and Irisleeve, making the process simple and giving uniform results. New for Converflex is the Camis DM de-mounting machine for easy removal of plates to avoid damaging of the polymer or the liner base, ensuring the reusability of the plates. FlexoTech had the opportunity to visit the Camis production facility in Milan and see a demonstration of the machines. Established in 1997, four to five plate mounters are built here at a time and sent all over the world. On the day of the visit, the company was about to ship a plate mounter to Siberia.
Managing director of Camis, Davide Pesenti, demonstrating the Taper Slide option on an Irisleeve platemounter
Four pillars
Uteco produces 80 converting lines per year and has almost 2600 installations worldwide through its international network of sales and service centres. Its mission is ‘to be recognised as world leader in printing and converting technologies by applying innovative solutions to produce quality packaging while safeguarding the highest respect for the environment.’ Leonardo Gobbi, vice president of marketing and sales, said, ‘The market is changing and it is very important for machine and converting equipment manufacturers in the packaging field to deeply understand the market dynamics and the needs of customers in order to help them be competitive and profit making.’
The company bases its philosophy on four pillars: products, quality, sustainability or eco-compatibility and service. For the flexo market, its product line include the Onyx, Topaz, Diamond and new Crystal CI presses, all available with the Touch & Go and Kiss & Go automatic set up systems. For colour matching, there is the SmartMatch system which is now being developed to include an inline spectrophotometer on press.
The company will be holding an open house event at its Verona facility during Converflex. At its R&D technological centre, it will show the Onyx 108 10 colour flexo press, which has a printing width of 1300 mm and speed of 400 m/min. As regards the show, Aldo Peretti, CEO, said, ‘We expect to find visitors both from Italy and from the Mediterranean area, Turkey – which is growing considerably – and Russia, where Uteco Group is acquiring significant market shares and where Italy is the leading supplier of packaging machinery.’
Leonardo Gobbi, vice president of marketing and sales at Uteco
Plates and brakes
Kodak Italia’s Michele Pioli spoke about how the printing plate is central to improving efficiency and productivity. He continued to give an overview of the Flexcel NX system which offers one-to-one reproduction of pixels, flat top dots, same height of all elements and micro-textured dot surface for improved ink laydown, no dot gain and a stable printing process.
This combined with the company’s Spotless technology for printing with four colour process promises time savings, less waste, increased colour consistency and high quality print. Re Controlli Industriali produces a variety of process automation equipment, including pneumatic brakes, tensions controllers, web guiding and viewing systems, and electro magnetic power brakes. Marketing and communication manager, Roberto Galbiati presented the new EXtreme XT10 pneumatic brake, which will be shown at Converflex.
Ink and inspection
Massimiliano Caretta Fantini, project business manager from Huber Italia, presented the company’s Gecko technology for packaging. This is a modular solvent ink system covering a host of applications with minimum of products and components. It is specifically designed to comply with food packaging safety.
The core of the product range is a modular mixing system allowing the formulation of the various inks series from the Gecko Base concentrate range. Huber Group also produces its own raw materials, resins and pigments, at its production facility in India.
Gama specialises in ink quality control systems. Sante Conselvan, sales and marketing director, gave an overview of the company and spoke about the costs of achieving quality. He said, ‘Our auto ink quality control and ink temperature control systems give the opportunity to optimise the capabilities of the printing press and can influence the quality of the final result.’ Launching at the show will be the new VIS G28 and VIS G29 systems with ‘vibration’ technology for automatic control of viscosity, pH and temperature.
The G29 system for flexo and gravure controls the viscosity and pH of water-based inks and automatically makes corrections by means of the addition of stabilisers for accurate print quality. The system sends real time information to the operator and issues a report at the end of the production, which can be saved for future reprints. Managing director of BST Italia, Paolo Tamburrini, presented the company’s comprehensive portfolio of web guiding and video inspection systems. QCenter for web viewing, 100% inspection, and spectral colour measurement was launched at drupa last year and will be presented for the first time in Italy at Converflex.
Also on show will be QCenter.Spectral for inline spectral colour measurement, which the company has developed with X-rite and is describes as ‘the future of colour control’. This connects to PantoneLive for full colour control and easy workflow. Also presented for the first time in Italy is ekr 500 digital, a digital enhancement of the web guiding controller ekr 500 Plus. ‘Converflex is a unique platform on which to present our solutions,’ said Mr Tamburrini. ‘Our visitors get a comprehensive overview of the production-optimising benefits our systems offer in daily practice.’
Also on show
Apex Italy will be showing its range of anilox rollers and sleeves for narrow and wide web, corrugated, offset and coating applications including the Genetic Transfer Technology (GTT) product line. Bielloni Converting is focusing on its Telia 10 FSC flexo press, which is capable of a complete 10 colour job change with less than 20 metres of waste material in under five minutes. Bobst Italia will present the latest innovations in sheetfed equipment including the new Expertcut 106 PER die-cutter, the Mastercut 145 PER for larger formats and the Expertfoil 142 format VI hot foil stamper, and for webfed equipment, the F&K 20SIX flexo press and General Registron Hawkeye pinhole detection system.
This will be complemented by an open house event running concurrently with the show at the company’s technology centre in San Giorgio Monferrato. As well as having a stand at the show, DuPont will take part in Uteco’s open house event and show its Cyrel DSP plate and Cyrel DigiFlow system. Euromac is celebrating its 45th anniversary and will be transporting visitors to its production site in Villanov Monferrato for an open house event. Flexotecnica will be showing its EvoXD eight colour press, a fully sleeved and gearless machine, which offers printing speeds of up to 500m/min.
The machine features a number of technical innovations, such as a new ventilation system for the final bridge dryer, which allows efficient print production with maximised energy saving. Grafikontrol will be showing its Grafikscan 3000 system for 100% inspection of printed web, which automatically detects and catalogues all defects in order to provide a realtime analysis of production.
Italian flexo industry veterans, Sante Conselvan (left) and Emilio Gerboni, deep in conversation at the Milan press conference
Grafikscan 2200 is a web viewer with statistical inspection software that ensures print quality control and minimises waste with help of dedicated special software: interactive register, barcode verification and colour monitoring. Lohmann will show its newly developed DuploFLEX MAXX plate mounting tape for demanding print jobs where edge lifting is a problem. It is available in four different foam hardnesses, which permit fine runs as well as dense ink coverage.
As there is a flexible PE film on both sides, the forces acting on the foam are perfectly cushioned to deliver the ideal print result. Omet is celebrating its 50th anniversary and are inviting visitors to its Lecco facility to see its machines in operation. The Lake Como based manufacturer will also be hosting a celebratory weekend for all its customers immediately following the show.
For Rossini, the focal point will be a new ultra-light flexo sleeve prototype which promises to guarantee total stability for up to three years. It will also show the Starbridge carrier with air-operated mechanical locking device, the Evolution drum washer system, which was first presented at drupa, the Speedwell sleeves for rotogravure printing, the Everstat sleeves for flexo printing and the new Everglass sleeves for narrow web machines.
