South Africa: Flexo Packaging and Printing

I. Golden Era Packaging & Printing Group “Flexographic printing used to be just a process, but now it has become a culture.” - This is the slogan put forward by Golden Era Packaging & Printing Group, which is located in Northwestern Johannesburg, 250 About a kilometer.
The GEP Group was founded by the fathers of Mr. Raj Chhita and Mr. Kishor Chhita. Today, this family business is run and run by these two brothers. Mr. Raj Chhita is the Production Manager and Mr. Kishor Chhita is responsible for the Group's other divisions near Johannesburg.
Currently, Golden Era Packaging & Printing Group has a number of subsidiaries and branches underneath. The main products include folding cartons, self-adhesive labels (seven Gallus R160 and R 200 semiautomatic printing machines), corrugated box manufacturers, and wax coatings. Cloth, polypropylene bags, business card paper, paper bags, blow molded bottles, etc. Among them, the production equipment for self-adhesive labels includes seven Gallus R160 and R200 semi-automatic printing machines; the folding carton production equipment includes sheet-fed offset printing and web flexographic printing. The produced folding cartons are mainly used for food and health products. Packaging for detergents and other daily necessities.
Before the purchase of the Lemanic Flexo flexo press, the company already had five Bobst folder-gluers folding cartoners and several Heidelberg sheetfed offset presses. Moreover, prior to the acquisition of the Lemanic Flexo flexographic press, the Group headquarters did not have a person with experience in flexo printing (the only person with experience in flexographic printing was the corrugated box printing company in Cape Town, which is part of the group). Therefore, employees participated in a one-week special training at DuPont's Customer Technical Service Center.
So why did the company decide to engage in flexo printing? As Mr. Chhita explained, with the development of process technology, flexographic printing is becoming more and more competitive, and in general, the cost is lower than that of offset printing (especially sheet-fed offset printing). This is not only his own point of view, many people and many companies also share this feeling. There are many companies in the world that are engaged in the flexo printing of folding cartons, and their business performance is very good. From this point, it can also prove that flexo printing is indeed a competitive printing process. He believes that in the future, the prices of the plates will surely come down (the Golden Era Group currently uses the Cyrel plates from DuPont and the AFP photopolymer plates from Asahi Photoproducts).
In his opinion, the greatest advantage of flexographic printing over single-sheet offset printing is that the size of the box can be changed, and the consistency of the quality of flexographic prints is also higher. In addition, the in-line processing capability of the flexographic printing process is very strong. Printing, glazing, die-cutting, cutting, and slitting processes can be performed in one continuous operation, and in-line inspection and quality control can also be performed. Therefore, as long as the production staff finishes and counts at the end of the production line (in this production step, it is still done manually), the final product is obtained, and then it can be shipped to the customer. This has advantages over sheetfed offset printing, especially in the short live market, and it is true that more and more short-lived jobs have been changed from offset to flexographic printing, meaning that the offset printing market is suffering The challenge of a serious shortage of living resources.
Mr. Raj Chhita said that the production management department analyzed the offset printing process and compared it with flexographic printing. The flexographic printing business volume grew very rapidly at the company. Finally, the offset printing division was reorganized. Moreover, the production efficiency of offset printing has also been greatly improved at present, and the business of sheet-fed offset printing is also quite good.
The Bobst Lemanic 820 flexographic press has a total of eight printing units, uses gearless transmission technology, and uses sleeve technology on both plates and anilox rollers for on-line quality control with a set of Bobst-Registron Q100 quality control systems. The flexographic printing press is suitable for printing and polishing water-based inks and UV inks.
The work of flexographic staff is also very good, and repeat production usually takes about 30 to 50 minutes to set up. Since the company's flexo press started production in November 1998, the volume of flexo-printed folding cartons has grown by 50%. The scrap rate is very low, controlled at about 4% to 5%, while the quality of printed matter is quite high – the carton produced by Golden Era Packaging & Printing Group is mainly used as an internationally renowned brand in the food, health care and detergent industry. Product packaging.
All of this made Mr. Raj Chhita proud and proud. He soon realized the potential and advantages of in-line processing with flexographic printing. Finishing, die-cutting indentation, and cutting were all completed at the same time. Three speed and cost requirements.
2. Newflex Packaging Group The group is located in Johannesburg and is principally engaged in the solvent-free and solvent-based compounding business of flexible packaging materials. The group has been engaged in flexo printing and bag making since 1995. Later, the group acquired a company in Johannesburg in 1996 and now has a Rotomec gravure press and two Titan slitters slitter. There are more than 20 production personnel working in three shifts (8 hours per shift and 5 days per week.) Most of the live parts are compounded using a solvent-free method.
3. Printpak Keartland The company specializes in the mass production of packaging cartons for foods (such as cereals) and cleaning products. There are several large and medium format MAN Roland printers.
In addition to other models of machines, the company also has a five-year 102 CERII automatic molding machine, although the manufacturer's trademark states that the machine's maximum speed is 9,000 strokes/hour. However, the actual speed of Printpak Keartland's actual production has exceeded this maximum value. The cutting speed is about 9060 strokes/hour. "It's not unusual," the operator said. "In most cases, we are running at this speed. This is also the average production speed we have kept at 8,000 strokes/hour over the past five years." The reason for the above!"
Fourth, CTP Gravure company The company has long been committed to the printing of gravure cigarette packs. There is an old-fashioned narrow-width Chambon gravure press and a six-color gravure printing line Lemanic 650 produced by Bobst Champlain, which runs for 20 hours a day.
During the visit, the company was printing a new package for the “Yes” cigarette pack. The gold on the cigarette pack was overprinted with a rough, shiny silver ink and yellow ink, and then applied to the lacquer. It is very realistic, but it saves a lot of expensive metal inks, which greatly saves production costs.
Although the press has been in use for 20 years, it still looks very new. The company currently has 34 employees and the production environment is always clean and tidy. "If the production environment is messy, it will not be possible to produce high-quality products."
In short, the flexographic printing industry in Africa has already achieved a certain degree of development. However, if Africa's flexographic printing industry wants to step out of Africa, move toward the world, and occupy the global market, it will not be able to do it in a single sentence. It also needs There are practical actions and a certain price.