Addressing Finishing Bottlenecks in Package Printing

Blanking—The blanking station also should be equipped with a quick-lock upper frame, permitting the quick exchange of the upper and lower frames. Equipment is available that provides solutions for insertion of tie sheets into the blanked load for stability.

Good tooling preparation is essential to ensure that no problems are encountered when a job is set up and the machine is ready to run. This requires very close collaboration with the tooling manufacturer, whether an external specialist or an internal die shop creates the die. The die should be pre-nicked to about 90 percent of expected requirements. Rubber of the correct hardness must be used to minimize nicks and reduce marking. Finally, rubber should never be placed next to the rule, but positioned correctly away from it to ensure it does not pull the sheet apart. It is important to save the makeready sheet from the first time a job was run, as this will minimize patch-up when the job repeats.