Spanish label converter Mirmar SA is to add a second Mark Andy Digital Series HD inkjet/flexo hybrid press in 2025, having placed an order after what it says has been a highly productive year with its first machine, which was installed at its Valencia headquarters in 2023.
The new machine will be a 17-inch wide DSHD HighSpeed 1200 hybrid, a model that was launched recently at Labelexpo Americas in Chicago. The digital/flexo hybrids work alongside an array of Mark Andy Performance Series flexo lines that the company has built its business on.
Mirmar CEO Jaime Mir Pastor explained, ‘Our Performance Series presses are highly productive and have allowed us to grow our business in the food, cosmetics, home care, and pharmaceutical sectors, but as run lengths have declined, we began to look for an alternative production method that would complement our existing technology.’
The result was the installation of a 17-inch Mark Andy Digital Series HD inkjet/flexo hybrid (DSHD) last year – a highly configurable system that combines 1200dpi UV-inkjet with flexo printing and inline embellishment and converting operations for single-pass production. It has standard CMYK with added Orange, Violet and White capability and is capable of 73 m/min (240 ft/min) across a range of substrates including pressure sensitive papers, unsupported films, tags, and light carton board. Based on the Performance Series flexo platform, the DSHD offers interchangeable tooling with Mirmar’s existing Mark Andy flexo presses and the ability to match print quality across the production floor. In its first year, the Digital Series HD has converted more than 3.4 million linear metres of labels.
‘Today’s market demand is typified by shorter runs, more SKUs, and the need for variable data, so we now have a situation where the Digital Series HD is responsible for 35% of our total printed label jobs, which frees up capacity on our flexo presses for the medium to long run work that our customers still need,’ Mr Mir Pastor continued. ‘Not only has it made us more efficient on existing work, but it has stimulated demand in new sectors especially cosmetics and pharma.’
The Digital Series HD is generally processing around 10 jobs per shift, compared to the three or four jobs per shift of the flexo presses, while make ready times are significantly shorter too – around 60 minutes for flexo compared with 20 minutes for digital. ‘This allows us to improve our scheduling and decide how to produce each job most cost and time effectively,’ said Mr Mir Pastor. He added that more digital capacity will increase the company’s flexibility and broaden its capability to handle new work.
Print production at Mirmar is currently around 70:30 film to paper, and demand for filmic products continues to grow, which poses environmental issues. ‘It’s like linerless – the biggest demand is from the food sector where price dominates, but this goes against the green ethos, because environmentally friendly methods are never the cheapest, so it’s not a level playing field,’ said Mr Mir Pastor.
