Straight & Narrow

Seeing opportunity, narrow-web press manufacturers including CPS, Edale, Gallus, Mark Andy, MPS, Nilpeter OMET, Rotatek, and others have been tweaking their performance to suit the requirements of folding carton markets. Offering, for example, strengthened servo motors that can support heavier substrates, larger unwind diameters and stronger die cutters. Some are also playing the quality card, selling their flexo machines as dedicated folding carton presses that offer the qualitative equivalent of offset with the advantages of a narrow web-fed press. One oft-mentioned attribute is less waste. Suppliers say web printing and conversion cuts down on the inherent waste of sheet printing. For some converters on the pioneering edge of narrow-format folding carton production, this can be a compelling argument.