SOMA’s Printing Solution Gives Packaging Producer a Flexible Advantage in India

Challenge

India has one of the largest printing packaging industries in the world. Reportlinker has forecasted that its packaging market is expected to exceed USD 204 billion by 2025. With this rising demand for packaged food and smaller print runs, packaging businesses cannot be working solely with gravure technology. They need to consider flexotechnology as the way forward.

In addition the installation of the equipment was to be carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. There were therefore logistics and traveling challenges to overcome due to the movement control procedures put in place.

Approach

We recommended the SOMA 800 Optima CI Flexo press solution as it is a start-up small press in terms of width and repeat, and easy to operate. While being compact for space efficiency, the press is purposeful featuring a full range of automation and user-friendly features. A key benefit of the machine is that it easily rewinds the used print setting film for future reuse.

The compact eight-color press is automated for make-ready, registration, and cleaning purposes without the waste of printing material and time. The press runs at a speed of 300 meters per minute and can print materials with a width of 820 millimeters.

To overcome the pandemic movement controls in India, our team and engineers coped with the stringent travel permissions and safety requirements to fulfill the installation at the customer’s premise and provide the necessary support services for the equipment.

Result

The biggest success for Multiflex Polybags was that they were able to meet their customers’ packaging and printing requirements. They also achieved better printing stability and improved output quality.

Very important for the business is that the Optima CI Flexo press enabled them to register high accuracy in small print batches that are on par with the traditional gravure processing method for large columns of printing.