Measuring anilox capacity at Paragon Print and Packaging. It is a manufacturer of packaging for the food industry with facilities located in northwest England. It has recently become part of the global Coveris Group. The company specializes in private label packaging for major retail chains and serves more than 1,800 customers across Europe.
Paragon produces about 1.5 billion labels a month at six plants. Its machinery consists of 52 flexographic printing machines. With this scale of business, and with increasing demands from customers for print quality, especially in terms of color, it should come as no surprise that the company was very interested in increasing the stability and predictability of its production process.
Paragon managers decided to implement the program with the goal of achieving greater boothardization of production, reducing costs and increasing print quality.
Technology and solution - anilox capacity measurement
The key to solving the problem was to work on a better transfer of Printing inks, which is influenced by, among other things, the capacity of the aniloxes and the proper selection of Printing inks. Until now at Paragon, these were variables not subject to regular and detailed control. There have been problems with so-called splashing of UV inks, and the company has found it difficult to achieve customer requirements for a tolerance of less than 2ΔE(CIE 2000) every time.
A key tool in the boothardization program at Paragon was the Troika Systems anilox quality inspection system. This is a Troika AniCAM capacity and cleanliness inspection device for aniloxes integrated with measurement data management software. Its use allowed Paragon's specialists to select a new anilox supplier that meets demanding criteria for roller quality.
It has also made it possible to begin systematically collecting data on anilox cleanliness and consumption. With such a database of information, printing press operators can now better match a set of aniloxes to specific jobs, avoid errors and resulting downtime, and react more quickly and consciously to problems at this critical point in the production process. The production department has also optimized the anilox cleaning process.
"Thanks to the Troika AniCAM, we can control anilox capacity at Paragon Print & Packaging by treating it as reliable information in the color management process. We now collect roller information at the start and after each wash. We have full visibility of this data at the company level thanks to the Anilox Management System." - Michael Marshall, production manager at Paragon, said.
Importantly, tighter measurement of anilox capacities, control of aniloxes allowed Paragon to select an ink supplier ideally suited to the rest of the process. As a result, splash problems were reduced to zero. It has been possible to achieve print quality with tolerances consistently below the very ambitious 2ΔE(CIE 2000) level. Greater boothardization also makes it easier for production workers to move jobs from one machine to another when necessary. Not to mention that they now have more knowledge and control over the entire process.
Michael Marshall: "We are confident that we are meeting customer requirements and will continue to do so in the future. When I take on a new order, I am confident that the quality management system will allow me to deliver the highest quality printing."
Successful boothardization based on quality control and volumetric measurements of aniloxes with the Troika AniCAM device contributed to:
- Reduction in printing inks losses by 55%
- Reduction in color change time by 46%
- Reduction of losses in the preparation phase by 15%
- Reduction in the wear and tear of the rake knives by 50%
- Increase productivity
- Stabilize print quality at a very high level.
Calculator of the savings you can make annually by using regular anilox inspections.
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