And The Winner Is
Q.C. Packaging Systems takes Best of Show in packagePRINTING's 18th Annual Excellence Awards competition.
Q. C. PACKAGING SYSTEMS (Mississauga, Ontario) will take home this year's Best of Show honors for the intricate printing and packaging of its "Buick Rainier" compact disk case. This entry was the first place winner in the Folding Cartons—Flexo (Process) category.
The consistent color, the diecut registration, the UV inks with water-based coating, and the quality of the flexo printing job made this year's judges of packagePRINTING's 18th annual competition look twice at the CD case. Commenting on the print quality, Clemson University Instructor Dean Gilbert said, "This piece could have been on the offset table."
"The extracurricular work it took to get it [the two piece design] to mate is apparent," judge Cordes Porcher, process specialist-flexography for Bobst Group USA said. And Colin Price, senior account manager for SICPA North American, added that it was "very balanced across the web."
Q.C. Packaging Systems' Director of Manufacturing David Franze offered some insider information into the completion of the difficult project.
"With a remarkable match to the target, this CTP original design ran at 300 fpm, with rotary diecutting in-line. The 4-color process held the 8-point reverse-type text without the aid of a key line, and the backside printing on uncoated board held tight register within two-thousands of an inch to the front-side print," Franze said.
He added that the entry was printed on an Arpeco 22˝ 10-color printing press, with DuPont DPL .45 plates and SICPA UV inks.
Stiff competition
This year, packagePRINTING received more than 256 entries from 52 different companies throughout the U.S. and Canada. Commenting on the overall quality of the competition's entries, Roy Webb, national sales manager for Mark Andy, said, "It's all excellent, there's lots of good product here."
In addition to the Best of Show award, Q.C. Packaging Systems swept the Folding Cartons—Flexo (Process) category and took first place in the Folding Cartons—Flexo (Line and Screen) category.
The runner-ups for Best in Show were Dee Paper Co. Inc. and Temple-Inland (Indianapolis). Dee Paper took first place in the Corrugated (Post/Direct Print)—Offset category with its "Lexmark P-3150 U.S". entry, while Temple-Inland, capture first place in the Corrugated (Preprint)—Flexo (Process) category with its "Cazadores" entry.
Other multiple winners in this year's competition include Hammer Lithograph Corp. with five awards, Package Service Co. earning two first place honors, and the Careerline Tech Center, receiving two awards in the Student-Produced Packaging—High School/Vocational School category.
In the Specialty Category—Technical Achievement, Graphic Solutions International LLC won first and second place honors with two hi-tech printing applications that really impressed the judges. Its first place winner, a printed 1.5 volt battery, is used to power semi-active RFID labels, as well as a cosmetic patch. The second place winner, an electroluminescent lamp, was produced with extremely tight color-to-color and print-to-diecut tolerances of 0.25 MM.
By Megan Wolf
Assistant Editor
