Labelling Solutions Monolox – the ground-breaking
Fixed Anilox Printing process Gary Seward, managing director of Pulse Roll Label Products, says the rising cost of doing business means more and more converters are looking for new ways to find efficiencies
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t’s no secret that energy has become more expensive. At the same time, environmental concerns like unnecessary energy consumption are front of mind for many in the industry. With this in mind, print techniques that allow businesses to operate more efficiently can provide a significant boost.
The demands facing the industry are also evolving. For example, it’s becoming more common to see requests for short-run, fast-turnaround jobs, with high degrees of customisation. This requires converters to be flexible and agile, able to quickly adapt to customer demands.
Consumers and brands alike also have high expectations around the sustainability of labels and packaging, with clear preferences for organisations that make the effort to ensure they act in an environmentally friendly way. Faced with these challenges, it may be time to look beyond the established methods – the things we’ve always done simply because they have always been done that way – to find a solution that will help converters stay competitive. Enter Monolox, the ground-breaking Fixed Anilox Printing process, championed by Pulse Roll Label Products.
Monolox Fixed Anilox Printing enables the production of any spot colour using just one anilox volume. Gone are the days of having to change anilox rollers between jobs, and the effort of manually selecting the right one for each colour.
With Monolox Fixed Anilox Printing, a fixed set can be installed, minimising press down time and allowing your lines to run freely.
It’s common in this industry to use multiple anilox volumes to achieve desired print quality. Changing aniloxes seems simple but can often represent a major productivity barrier. Each changeover requires multiple steps, introducing the potential for errors, waste - and therefore additional costs. While control patches offer an option for matching anilox volume to colour, this also brings in extra financial outlay, and further wastes time.
As well as removing variability, simplifying this process shows how Monolox Fixed Anilox Printing can increase press uptime and facilitate closed loop colour management. With Monolox, it’s now simple to deliver service that stands out and delivers more, with less.
Monolox Fixed Anilox Printing is made possible by a series of high strength, single pigment inks. PureTone inks are both strong and balanced enough to produce any colour using one anilox volume. They require lower coating weight than other ranges, and boast low migration performance, enabling faster printing with fewer imperfections.
What’s more, given the emerging trend towards vibrant colours, PureTone inks can easily deliver a Delta E of less than two.
This ink system has the added benefit of enabling printing of half and full tones using only one plate. In combination with a bespoke mixing database, which guides printers through colour matching with the range, significant productivity improvements are within easy reach. Used in combination with Monolox Fixed Anilox Printing, PureTone inks can offer converters a leg-up with sustainability. Our ink database is designed around using 800 LPI X 3.87 BCM / 314 LCM X 3.87 BCM/ 800 LPI x 6 micron anilox, which is our recommendation for all spot colours except wine stock due to absorption.
Alongside eliminating the need for test prints to match colours, which wastes ink unnecessarily, PureTone’s strength means less ink is needed to achieve bold, bright shades – with attainable consumption benefits of up to 30%. This strength also means it is easy to make the change from digital to flexo – often considered one of the main barriers facing modern printers and converters. Used with a calibration programme, PureTone’s run-to-run consistency and repeatability across print methods makes it easy to scale jobs.
At its core, Monolox Fixed Anilox Printing is simple to run. Having proven its success with several leading label printers, this process has already helped to standardise production and boost capacity by eliminating manual steps from the converting process.
With streamlining set to be one of the main printing trends of the next few years, Monolox Fixed Anilox Printing could be the answer for converters looking for new ways to stay on top in an evolving market.
26
April 2023
www.convertermag.com
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