Held at Mark Andy’s Macclesfield showroom, BPIF label’s first operator training day on the topic of care and maintenance of anilox rollers was a great success. The welcome by chairman John Bambery and Paul Macdonald, UK sales manager at Mark Andy, was followed by a number of technical presentations.
Paul Smith, managing director of Cheshire Anilox Technology, gave a brief history of the anilox roller and how it has become an important and integral part of the flexographic process, enabling advances in print quality.
Jon Jordan, sales director at Troika Systems, spoke about the need for measuring and volume standardisation for improving density control and explained how good work practices and anilox roller management can lead to significant cost savings and productivity improvements. This was further endorsed by Shaun Igoe, operations manager at PPP Digital Imaging, who explained how the origination process is influenced by anilox roller specifications.
The final presentation came from Chris Jones, UK & Ireland sales manager, Alphasonics, who reported on the need for good cleaning processes and how to set up a good cleaning regime.
Delegates had been given the opportunity to bring an anilox roller for testing by Troika using its AniCAM technology. These were tested and cleaned during the morning, and reported on during the afternoon session, where delegates were also able to see good anilox roller management in operation on Mark Andy’s Performance Series P5 press.
The delegates came away full of praise for the way in which the training day had been planned and the knowledge that they gained. Suggestions for future training days included fingerprinting, plate mounting and platemaking as well as UV inks incorporating colour matching.
The next training day on UV curing will be held on 4 March at Edale’s showroom in Whiteley, with presentations from GEW, Zeller +Gmelin and Fujifilm.
