Heidelberg has unveiled its new Heidelberg Boardmaster flexographic web printing system at Interpack 2023, saying the press has a machine availability of up to 90% and a maximum printing speed of 600m/min. The company claims this delivers ‘double the productivity, and dramatically reduces total cost of ownership in industrial packaging production.’
As the global demand continues to grow, packaging and label printing is experiencing structural growth, and Heidelberg claims this is an important segment for the company.
‘With the world premiere of our Heidelberg Boardmaster, we are responding to key customer challenges in the packaging market – cost pressure, the skills shortage, and the need to optimise productivity and sustainability,’ said Heidelberg CEO, Dr Ludwin Monz.
Flexographic printing is being used to produce around 15% of the total folding carton volume and this proportion is continuing to increase, with flexo folding carton printing volume exhibiting above-average growth of 2.4% in packaging printing.
‘The Heidelberg Boardmaster enables industrial packaging producers to significantly reduce their operating costs. With its numerous benefits for customers, the Boardmaster also provides an attractive alternative for many users who have so far opted for VLF – very large format – sheetfed offset printing,’ said Christian Steinmassl, who is in charge of the Packaging segment at Heidelberg.
Development work for the Boardmaster was carried out in close collaboration with international packaging customers and factored in their key challenges, such as cost pressure, the skills shortage, and the need to optimise productivity and sustainability. The Boardmaster’s print deck has two print units. While one unit is busy with production, the second one can be readied for the next print job. Depending on the configuration, it is claimed that a machine availability of up to 90% is possible in production. Substrates with grammages of between 70 and 800gsm can be processed.
