Industry News - February 2014
Middleton Printing Installs Epson SurePress Label Printer
Family-owned label printing company, Middleton Printing in Grand Rapids, Michigan has purchased and installed an Epson SurePress L-4033AW digital label press to expand its flexographic production services.
Designed for prime label converters and commercial printers, the Epson SurePress L-4033AW is an easy to operate seven-color inkjet digital label press with white ink that makes high-quality, short-run label printing easier and more efficient, even on clear and metallic substrates.
GPA Announces NewPre-converted Substrates
GPA is now offering a line of Ultra Digital Pre-Converted Substrates that make it easy to create a wide variety of eye-catching, personalized applications right off the press without the need for additional finishing equipment. Built-in perforations, scores and diecuts make finishing faster to enable quicker arounds that can provide a competitive advantage in an on-demand marketplace.
The new offerings include playing card boxes, golf ball sleeves, coffee cup sleeves, 4˝ square boxes, and table tents.
GPA specializes in cut-sheet substrates and solutions for offset and digital printing. Products include coated and uncoated papers, pressure sensitive and specialty papers, synthetic films and substrates many of which are exclusively engineered for HP Indigo and other digital presses.
www.askgpa.com
DuPont Announces Price Increase for Ethylene Copolymer Resins
DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers announced a North America price increase of $0.04 per pound ($0.088/kg) on all grades of DuPont Elvax ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) resins. This increase is effective Feb. 1, 2014, or as contracts allow.
DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers is best-known for ethylene copolymer products, including DuPont Surlyn resins for packaging and industrial applications, Appeel lidding sealant resins, Bynel coextrudable adhesives, Selar PA amorphous polyamide barrier resins, Nucrel acid copolymers, Elvax EVA copolymers, Elvaloy, Elvaloy AC, Entira and Fusabond modifiers, and Vamac ethylene acrylic elastomers.
www.dupont.com
Labels Unlimited Purchases Xeikon 3030 Digital Color Press
Labels Unlimited has purchased and installed a Xeikon 3030 digital color press to support its growing business in pressure sensitive labels, tags, film, laser sheets and other types of packaging. In business since 1985 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Labels Unlimited has expanded three times and now employs nearly 50 people. Accounts are spread all over North America. Customers run the gamut from the food and beverage industry to hospitals and into semi-pharmaceutical businesses.
General Manager Larry Chartrand says, "Virtually everything we do is custom. What do you want? We'll make it." Short run labels of various shapes and sizes, using temporary or permanent adhesives and other variables and specific customer needs, led them to choose a Xeikon 3030 press. One of the deciding factors was the Xeikon's ability to print on a large variety of substrates that Labels Unlimited requires, as well as lightfastness and print quality.
www.xeikon.com
OEC Graphics Opens New South Carolina Facility
OEC Graphics, a family-owned and vertically integrated pre-media company and globally recognized expert in flexography, has opened OEC Graphics-Carolinas, its sixth manufacturing location, in Spartanburg, SC.
The new location follows OEC's strategy to support and expand its customer base within the area. The new facility is fully operational with in-house prepress, color separations, color management and technical support. Together with the full-service platemaking of OEC Graphics-Atlanta, OEC can deliver complete pre-media services to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
www.oecgraphics.com
Toray Adds Key Players
Toray Plastics (America), the only U.S. manufacturer of precision-performance polypropylene, polyester, bio-based and metallized films for packaging and industrial applications has named Chris Voght as senior director of sales of the Torayfan Division. Toray also promoted Franco Chicarella to the position of national sales manager, and Lauritz Goodrich to senior manager of the Strategic Alliance Group.
"Chris, Franco and Lauritz have all demonstrated a level of commitment, competency and success that has been beneficial to our customers and to Toray," says Chris Roy, general manager, Torayfan Division.
www.toraytpa.com
PPC Marks Record-Breaking Year
Recording numerous achievements and upgrades over the past year—and during a time of conservative business expenditures and investments—the Paperboard Packaging Council (PPC) has witnessed increased participation, sold-out events and enhanced digital presence, securing its position as North America's preeminent trade association for folding carton/rigid box converters and suppliers.
As part of its data reporting and benchmarking program, PPC annual Trends Report generated record-breaking downloads. Members were provided with online samples of data reports, including the Safety Boxscore Report and the Overall Equipment Effectiveness Report (representing 170 printing presses), which resulted in record participation. The association also implemented a new data report for rigid box manufacturers and a Canadian Market Flash Report.
PPC also saw record-breaking attendance at its 2013 Associate Member Showcase Breakfast and Technical and Production Design Summit, two sold-out plant tours and its highest turnout for the annual TICCIT (Trees Into Cartons, Cartons Into Trees) program to date, distributing 13,500 saplings to school children across North America.
PPC also optimized its presence on social media sites, expanding participation on the association's social media platforms by over 50 percent. The group also released six educational webinars to members on topics such as the Affordable Care Act, Forest Certification and Tips and Tricks in Structural Design. Following the launch of the new URL, paperbox.org, PPC made numerous enhancements to its Website, improving functionality and increased user visits by 10 percent.
www.paperbox.org
Mark Andy Appoints Director of Flexo Consumables
Mark Andy Print Products (MAPP), a division of Mark Andy, is pleased to announce the appointment of Joe Calmese as director of flexo consumables. This new position continues the road map for the growing consumables and supplies business established last year with the integration of the Presstek supplies business into Mark Andy.
Joe brings strong, in-depth project management and industry expertise from the engineering group of Mark Andy, as well as a keen perspective and motivation to build a strong, full-service team dedicated to supporting label and package printers.
In this newly created position, Joe will be charged with supporting the company's mission to be the 'total solutions provider', committed to working directly with label printers, converters and other flexographic print businesses, consulting with them in order to provide the best consumables, supplies and products that will optimize their printing operations and workflows.
www.markandy.com
Colordyne Announces New Industrial Class Offerings
Colordyne Label Designer Pro will now be included with each registered Industrial Class Printer Package at no additional cost. The Industrial Class printers include the CDT 1600-C Continuous Roll Digital Color Printer and the CDT 1600-S Sheet Fed Digital Color Printer.
The next generation of SoftRIP by Wasatch offers integration with the Colordyne Label Designer Pro when color management is crucial. The update requires the user to only navigate Label Designer Pro while the SoftRIP operates as a background task, enabling end users to serve up thousands of labels while SoftRIP overlays its color management controls.
A new Print Monitor Application enables improved management of CDT's Industrial Class printers. The new application provides more information with functions including drop counts, job costing, system status and printer maintenance. This new print monitor application will be shipped with every Industrial Class Printer Package at no additional cost.
www.colordynetech.com
