Cover Story--Wide-Open Opportunities

Coating Excellence International produces photo-quality images with water-based inks on W&H flexo presses.

COATING EXCELLENCE INTERNATIONAL (CEI, Wrightstown, Wis.) started out in life in 1997 as an extrusion company, focusing on poly-coating and poly-laminating paper substrates using a 105" Egan Davis Standard high-speed extruder. It wasn't long, however, before the company expanded into the printing business, installing a new 8-color Windmoeller & Hoelscher flexographic press in January of 2000. Later that same year, CEI doubled its capacity, adding another 105" Egan extruder, a second Windmoeller & Hoelscher press, and support equipment. The company has continued to expand its facilities, adding two additional Windmoeller & Hoelscher presses this year, along with an adhesive coater and laminator.

Bringing printing in-house

CEI serves a wide variety of markets, including ream wrap, food packaging, flexible packaging, industrial, and release markets. The company originally got into package printing to support its ream wrapper business. According to Mike Nowak, president of CEI, their original thinking was to make the base product and outsource the printing. They quickly discovered, however, that they needed to control the total quality of the product; and to meet their own stringent quality standards, they decided to do the printing in-house. This also helped meet a key need to provide their customers with quick turnaround and superior service, which Nowak says, are key elements for CEI's continued business success.

The four Windmoeller & Hoelscher 50" Astroflex presses have more than met CEI's needs, says Nowak. "We print very high-quality products for the retail market and the W&H presses provide excellent quality to meet this need," he states. "We also print logo-type printing for the commercial market, and the heavy-duty W&H presses let us produce these more commodity-type products at very high speeds to keep our costs down."

Some of CEI's higher end products require photograph-quality images. These products are used for packaging high-quality, high-priced reams of paper on the retail shelf. According to Nowak, much of the ream wrap that contains a photo on the wrapping at stores such as Office Depot and Staples is printed by CEI.

"These [products] are particularly challenging because they are on film substrates and are printed with water-based inks. CEI's unique combination of world-class equipment and world-class people let us achieve these results," boasts Nowak.

Press versatility is key

CEI uses all water-based inks—supplied by Flint Ink and Sun Chemical—and prints on a wide-array of substrates, including paper, poly-coated paper, BOPP film, polyester film, and foil, so press versatility is important to them.

Of its four W&H Astroflex presses, two are gearless, three are 8-color units, and one is a 10-color press. Nowak says that the three 8-color presses provide excellent quality on both film and paper substrates. Additionally, he notes, "The AVT video detection systems have let us take customer quality and consistency to a new level. The new 10-color press will allow us to not only increase the number of colors, but will also allow us to put special high-performance coatings on our products and print both sides of the web in one pass."

Two challenges faced continually by Coating Excellence are the inherent drying requirements of water-based inks and press changeover time. Nowak attributes the flexibility of the Astroflex presses to providing a better operating window when working with the various water-based inks and their associated drying requirements.

Changeover and clean-up time has been helped greatly by features included in the presses, says Nowak. "All of our presses have ink back flush systems that clean out the old ink and put in the new inks. They also have robotic arms for changing plate rolls and anilox rolls. This not only allows us to change over an 8-color job in one hour, but it is also allow us to put special high-performance coatings on our products and print both sides of the web in one pass."

Two challenges faced continually by Coating Excellence are the inherent drying requirements of water-based inks and press changeover time. Nowak attributes the flexibility of the Astroflex presses to providing a better operating window when working with the various water-based inks and their associated drying requirements.

Changeover and clean-up time has been helped greatly by features included in the presses, says Nowak. "All of our presses have ink back flush systems that clean out the old ink and put in the new inks. They also have robotic arms for changing plate rolls and anilox rolls. This not only allows us to change over an 8-color job in one hour, but it is also ergonomically safer for the employees, and reduces damage to cylinders. The robotic system is a vital tool in helping us improve our cost position."

New capabilities, new markets

CEI is using the additional press capacity and new capabilities of the 10-color press to attract new business. "We are just entering the food packaging market," says Nowak. "While we have produced base stock for food packaging, we have not previously provided printed products."

The company is currently developing a new line of flexible food packaging products that will not compete with its base stock markets and customers. These products will generally be film based and use CEI's new press and adhesive laminating capabilities.

by: Tom Polischuk