Foundation of FTA Explores Flexo’s Global Gateway

MONTREAL, Canada—More than 1,700 flexographers, from 17 different countries, recently converged upon the Palais de congrès in Montréal, QC, Canada for Foundation of Flexographic Technical Association’s (FFTA) 2007 Annual Forum and INFO*FLEX Exhibition. Over the course of four days—May 6-9—they networked on the sold-out INFO*FLEX show floor, conducted business with 183 exhibitors, attended technical sessions, established new contacts, and strengthened existing contacts.

One thing was certain—flexographic printing, as the Forum theme denoted, is “Crossing Borders,” and Forum 2007 was the global gateway to success. The event was chaired by David Nunez, Great Lakes Packaging. Dan Dietrich, Schawk, Inc., served as vice chair.

Keynote speaker David A. Schawk, Schawk Inc., addressed globalization and the Asian marketplace. “Be where the opportunity is!” Any company that wants to grow cannot ignore China and India, he asserted. There is much diversity within the 1.3 billion and 1 billion person populations of those countries alone, and as such, “Visual clues that consumers respond to vary in each region.” This leaves uncounted opportunities for short runs and fast turnarounds—the very mantra of flexographic printing. Debbra A.K. Johnson and John McCooey of DuPont, two of three individuals who joined Schawk at center stage, recommended that flexographers looking to expand beyond their borders embrace the five Cs—complexity, communication, competition, collaboration, and corporate social responsibility (a.k.a. sustainability).

Michael Ferrari of Procter & Gamble, insisted, “It’s not enough to survive” if one wants to go global. “You must want to succeed…I used to think the big ate the small, but now I know the fast eat the slow.” He encouraged flexographers to embrace one thing that made this industry truly unique—FIRST (Flexographic Image Reproduction Specification and Tolerances). Later, at the FIRST session, Ferrari decreed, “Take the guess work out of daily tasks!” He warned that in his own experience, “Inconsistent process controls have at times led to unnatural looking babies. And, unnatural looking babies don’t sell diapers.” Deployment of FIRST is not just about process control, it’s about controlling variables, such as inks and substrates.

Forum’s other keynote speaker, Don Carli, The Institute for Sustainable Communication, called printing “the most important industry in the world.” He asked attendees to “consider life for one day without print” and proclaimed that print had “world-changing power.” Carli professed that sustainability was “the new IQ test for management.” He challenged everyone in the audience to become “the first search result in Google for ‘sustainable flexography.’”

Speaking of challenges, in a lively presentation, “Flexo—Make My Day, Don’t Torment My Nights,” PepsiCo’s John Fulcoly claimed that CPCs’ needs appear to be taxing the industry’s capabilities. He demanded flexographers do better and act to ward off infringement on their turf from competitive press processes.