While the noble pursuit of quality, service and flexibility remain important to label and packaging businesses, the goal of every printer should be to achieve maximum efficiency and optimum throughput to deliver the highest possible production rates and increase revenue-generating potential, all the while operating in the most sustainable way possible.

How do you achieve this?

Can hardware make a difference? Platemaking and mounting are getting more productive and efficient. Presses are getting bigger, wider, and faster. Set-up of print stations and registration are highly automated. Finishing equipment is increasingly capable and ever-more complex.

Or is software the solution? End-to-end integration makes data available everywhere, all the time, freely flowing around a production environment to simplify processes and get jobs in and invoices out just as quick.

Closed loop, end-to-end automation is another solution touted to printers as a way to transform legacy business models into lean and mean operations fit for the 21st Century.

But what if there was another way?

What if there was a way to add a whole two weeks of press time every year back into your production, allowing you to print more labels and make more money. That’s 5% additional capacity for no investment.

This option already exists, with no tricks, no smoke, and no mirrors. Hidden in plain sight for almost all narrow web flexo printers to see and so obvious that it beggars belief that more aren’t capitalising on it already. It’s not about running presses at faster speeds or being able to do it all inline in one pass. It’s not about the quick changeover of semi-rotary dies or even the complementary use of digital to print only what you need, when you need it.

The solution lies in ink.

As flexo took off as a viable print process for labels during the 1980s and 1990s, ink formulations at that time could only reach a certain strength. This resulted in the need for different aniloxes of different volumes to print process colours at the strength needed and consistency required.

Globalisation accelerated in the early 21^st Century and saw brands truly establish themselves as multinational entities with packaging in markets all around the world, making consistency increasingly important in combination with demand for spot colours that are specified and mixed precisely to a brand’s requirements.

The development of ink formulations with the capabilities of Pulse’s PureTone® – a high-strength, single pigment ink – at the same time has given rise to additional benefits that open up a world of possibility for narrow web flexo printers. Fixed anilox printing of spot colours is chief among them, offered via the Monolox system.

When using conventional UV printing systems, anilox selection becomes a major drag on production, as several different types are required per job. What’s available on the day the job is first run or what is in the anilox inventory further complicate matters. The Monolox system allows selection of one anilox volume for all colours on a single job and simplifies set up and reduces job changeover time. Increased press running time every single day is a very real benefit.

Using fixed anilox printing unlocks big returns for printers by increasing utilisation of equipment, adding a large number of saleable hours back into their operations through increased press uptime, and reducing anilox and ink inventories for the production of an endless array of spot colours and jobs.

The Monolox system can be used with aniloxes from any manufacturer, which only need to have a single low cell volume to make them applicable to “The Monolox Way”.

In the competitive world of flexo label printing, PureTone® and Monolox offer a revolutionary approach that ensures greater utilisation of equipment and gives printers the capacity to do more with less, be more responsive, and outsmart the competition. Unlocking hidden efficiencies empowers print businesses to deliver better solutions to customers, all the while optimising sustainability and profitability:

• Slicker changeovers are achieved and bottlenecks are eliminated, freeing up valuable capacity in production schedules;

• Switching between jobs has never been easier and faster, freeing up capacity and increasing press utilisation to give you a critical edge over the competition; and

• Smaller orders can be handled at larger order pricing levels, attracting customers who no longer need to order excessive stock, reducing their waste and storage costs.

With many customers continuing to over-order to get better pricing, only to scrap excess product when designs or needs change, the combination of PureTone® and Monolox renders this futile. Rather, you deliver the same cost benefits for smaller, more frequent orders at the same time as eliminating scrap and excess waste. This results in an increase in order volumes as the cost per job declines, creating a competitive pricing environment without compromising margins.

This is further boosted by faster job set-up and optimised press utilisation that means more work is completed using the same resources. In reality, this equates to that two weeks’ worth of press uptime we told you about earlier that is added back into production without additional investment. Based on an average working time of 16 hours per day, 5 days a week over the course of a 51-week year, an increase of just 5% in uptime generates an additional 204 hours of utilisation per press, or upwards of €40,000 in value based on industry standard figures.

Imagine what you can with that at your disposal?

For customers, they have reduced exposure to excess inventory and the risk of obsolescence while benefiting from the ability to respond in real-time to market demands and changes. They also improve their sustainability performance. Alongside mechanical production gains from a streamlined and efficient process at their print partner of choice, a lower film weight only achievable through the use of high-strength, single-pigment inks reduces ink consumption by as much a 30%, reducing the overall pack weight.

It is evident that specifying inks fit for modern printing environments, combining them with technology that redefines the way flexo printing works, and getting the most out of existing hardware are surefire ways to streamline processes and unlock hidden capacity, allowing you to redefine what’s possible with label printing.

Find out more about Pulse’s PureTone® inks and the Monolox fixed anilox printing system and discover how they can revolutionise your work and the expectations of your customers.