The medium hard printing plate, nyloflex ACT Digital
Highest quality demands from customers require expert knowledge as well as continuous improvement and high innovative strength of suppliers. Perfect results can only be achieved by close cooperation between all partners involved in the printing process. The cooperation between Panther Group, Gries and Flint Group is a prime example. By Angelika Rauch, Flint Group Flexographic Products.
Founded in 1902 as Altonaer Wellpappenfabrik, Panther Group can look back on more than 100 years of tradition in packaging printing. Over the decades, several companies have been added, and today the family enterprise has production sites in seven German cities and employs around 1000 people.
The company supplies customers all over Europe with paper, corrugated board, pre-print products, packaging and displays. Additionally, it delivers numerous packaging related products and services. Important parts of the company’s philosophy are to develop innovation and to leverage synergies for the customers’ benefits. Quality, environmental protection, hygiene and sustainability are primary objectives, and it is a matter of course that all sites are certified. There is also a clear social commitment, as for instance, a donation to sponsor vocational education and training within the paper industry, set up in 1974 by Fritz Landmann, son of company’s founder.
Another example of the future-oriented approach is the opening of the modern pre-print production site at Panther Print in Wustermark, Germany, in March 2011. A central part of this facility is a new Fischer & Krecke press, which features up to eight colours plus a varnish unit.
Innovation and progress
Horst Gries GmbH & Co KG was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in Siek, near Hamburg. The medium-sized company holds a 50% share of LaserFlex GmbH & Co KG, a printing formes manufacturer, which was founded in 2000. LaserFlex supplies flexographic printing formes within Germany and Europe, mainly to medium-sized packaging printers in the application areas of corrugated (pre-print and post print), films, labels and paper, but also to food and non food brand owners. It has been supplying the production sites of Panther Group are with repro and printing formes for pre- and post print since 1981.
With longstanding experience in the pre-print area, Gries focuses on innovation and improvement. Thus, it upgraded to HD Flexo in 2011 and installed a new CDI Advance digital imager.
Close cooperation with customers and suppliers are essential for Gries. As a service oriented and experienced partner of Panther Group, the company offers a broad range of services from the production of digital printing formes to advice for printing and reproduction processes. Special attention is given to customer’s technical conditions in supporting the printing project through the entire production process. Higher production speeds of Panther Print’s new flexo pre-print press and the customer’s strong quality demands result in a continuous optimisation of reproduction and technical preparation of designs and printing formes. In addition, the latest technologies for reproduction and production of printing formes include the representation of a comprehensive range of new tools.
Many years of cooperation
Gries and Flint Group have had a long and close working partnership since the 1970s.
This ongoing cooperation, and Flint Group’s broad portfolio of printing plates, which are suitable for almost any application, are the reasons why Gries chooses to use almost the complete range of digital nyloflex printing plates, with some very positive results.
Panther Group was using the medium hard plate, nyloflexACT, which is optimised for printing of designs that combine halftones and solids, before the installation of the new pre-print press. This plate delivers sharper images, more open intermediate depths, finer highlight dots and a larger range of tonal values, which produces excellent printing quality.
Due to the large format printing plates used on the new flexo pre-print machine in Wustermark, easier handling and higher register accuracy have become essential. To meet these requirements, Flint Group developed the nyloflex ACT 170 Digital printing plate with a stronger carrier sheet. This plate offers the same advantages as the ACT Digital plate, however, it is stronger and can be mounted on large presses without any risk of deformation. It ensures easier handling and higher register accuracy in the pre-print and is a prime example of the success of a close cooperation between a printing house, trade house and printing plates supplier.
