Retrofitting to Meet Today's Quality Demands, 1998 Polymers, Laminations & Coatings Conference Proceedings

Todays flexographic converters are having their standards questioned, and pushed to higher levels by their customers. The flexographic process has eliminated or controlled most of the variables that has lead to inferior quality when compared to lithography and gravure printing processes in the past . The flexographic process is truly coming into its own by providing the customers the quality, consistency, and repeatability that allows the converters the most versatility in the ever-changing market today. With flexo being the largest growing printing process, we feel that it is imperative that converters have the capabilities or the understanding of how to gain these capabilities by purchasing new equipment, or to simply re-evaluate their current equipment inventory and bring it up to todays standards with retrofitting packages that are available today.

There is now more than one answer to the converter who has specific needs yet have older flexo presses that show inferiority’s when compared to today’s new presses and high end graphic desires by their customers. In the past the only option a converter had was to purchase a new press to increase productivity or to meet the higher graphic needs. This may still hold true if you have allowed your equipment to physically deteriorate to the point of no return, but many facilities have proactive maintenance programs that keep your equipment within the original tolerances. With managed equipment, you can look into increasing your productivity by simply RETROFITTING. With the solid foundations from older presses, and success rates of the retrofits hitting the streets with tremendous force, we are seeing a big serge in a field that has been evolving for some time but has become more and more popular as the prices for new equipment continue to soar higher. This alternative to new purchases is to simply retrofit your existing equipment with todays components. Retrofit packages custom fit to your needs and may be approached in a variety of ways that can put your facility into the competitive mode that you feel necessary. Retrofits can be as simple as to overhaul the original structures, provide new printing decks to the original framework, or completely replace your current print section with todays state of the art print section, that will even allow you to increase the number of printing decks up to eight colors.

Many of the older presses may be allocated to areas that may not require the accuracy’s needed to produce tight registers or four color process type work. With this being the case, manufactures can offer an overhaul to your existing presses which will bring it back into original specifications, or if combined with the proper help, it will allow your press to develop tighter standards than were originally specified to produce. This may require many parts to be replaced in the gear train, chambered doctor blades, tension controls upgrades, dryer upgrades, and possibly drive conversions....