Crazy for Combos

The printing possibilities on combination presses has a variety of end-users looking for more out of their applications.

by Sean Riley, Associate Editor

THE WORD IS now out on combination printing and customers are clamoring to their converters for more mileage out of their package printing. They want packaging that leaps off of store shelves and contains as much color, style, and information as is possible to produce.

Combination narrow web presses have been at the forefront in fulfilling these needs quite well, but printers have found that their customers are insatiable when it comes to the combo process. Buyers from new markets want bigger and bolder applications complete with every bell and whistle that present day printing can provide. And they want it yesterday.

"The next logical market to embrace combination printing is the mid-web carton and packaging arena," according to Ed Dedman, SICPA North America product manager for Labels & Plastic Cards. "As users of folding cartons, semi-rigid packaging, and standup pouches seek to capture new market share, the addition of rotary screen, foil stamping, etc., can provide a new "look" for these items."

You want fries with that?

In the past couple of years, press suppliers have reached the point where they can now offer a plethora of options along a combo press. Where once it was considered cutting edge to offer flexo and offset capabilities on the same press, the sky is the limit for today's combinations. Presses that incorporate wet offset, waterless offset, and flexo, like RDP Marathon's decade-old High Quality LG-200, are no longer exceptions, but the rule. Because of this, RDP, for example, has continued to streamline its combination capabilities, according to President and CEO, Eric Short.

"RDP Marathon has been able to fully integrate the controls and makeready of the various print processes into one press control system, the Smart Set 2000," Short says. "The recently released Optum-plus management software allows for press management, which includes all press components and print processes into one data collection and management system."

Dedman points to the advent of print cartridge technology as another breakthrough that has allowed for full print process interchangeability. He cites Gallus, Nilpeter, and Mark Andy/COMCO as the main players in some of these advancements. In fact, Nilpeter sales manager Tom Tucker estimates that almost 90-percent of his company's sales are now combinations of offset, flexo, foil stamping, and screen printing.

Over at Mark Andy, Product Development Manager Ken Daming says that gravure capabilities have begun to work their way into the different combo possibilities.

"We sell flexo presses with screen capabilities—along with hot foil stamping, and even gravure coating capabilities," Daming says.

Got gravure?

This is a recent break from the norm, when gravure was not as commonly included on a combination press platform for a variety of reasons. Most suppliers in the industry point to gravure's cost.

"Until now, the major limitation for combination gravure has been the high cost of engraving a gravure cylinder," says Dedman. "This is counter to the typical narrow web print jobs, which keep getting smaller and more frequent. There is a growing interest, though, within the narrow web market, in adding gravure capability, and it is made more attractive by recent technology breakthroughs in gravure sleeves, which can be made more quickly and more economically."

Mark Andy also believes cost has been an overriding issue with gravure, and points to the costly cylinders as a main reason. "The gravure cylinder is much more expensive than a normal flexo plate, so it is usually used in one of two applications," Daming contends. "It is used when the application requires a high-quality image—and is a very long run. That is the only way to economically justify the cost of the gravure print cylinder."

To alleviate some of the cost, Mark Andy recently announced that its Comco ProGlide press will now be designed to run a solvent-based gravure application in combination with the normal flexo and screen printing processes. "We have designed a very high capacity drying system along with a gravure printing station and reconfigured some components to make the press solvent-safe," Daming says. This combination allows the press operator to apply a heavy laydown of coating and keep the press speed high throughout the run.

Dedman agrees with Daming's concerns over the cost of the expensive components necessary on a press to run solvent-based gravure ink. It is here, in the inks that are applied in combination runs, that SICPA has attempted to find ways to assist these issues economically.

"There are developments on several fronts," Dedman explains. "Improved rotary screen opaque whites, which provide better opacity while allowing UV and EB flexo, UV letterpress, and UV offset overprinting without the addition of silicone to the inks; ink and coating formulations in all major narrow web processes which accept both hot- and cold-foiling and other decorative processes; newly developed solvent- water- and UV-based inks and coatings for narrow- to mid-web gravure printing; and finally, an evolving focus on how digital printing will fit into the combination printing arena."

Supersized combos

Because end users want to put more and more data on their packaging, the inevitable question making its way back to manufacturers and suppliers is: How far can combination printing extend beyond narrow-web for current applications?

"We see combination printing all the way up to 22˝ wide," says Daming. "Presses wider than that are usually dedicated to a particular application and adding other processes is just too cost prohibitive." In certain cases however, he does think that it is feasible to combine flexo with a gravure coating station that is dedicated to a particular application.

Taking the variables of cost and ease of operation into consideration, Short feels it is only justifiable to extend up to 20˝ or 26˝ wide. In his eyes, the need to reconfigure print processes causes the market to dictate shorter run lengths and therefore narrower press widths.

The LG-200 press by RDP Marathon can be configured to 10 units—both litho and gravure—with additional flexo capability.