Flexographic Printing - Wide Web

Anilox rolls are often considered “the heart of the flexographic printing process,” as Dr. Lloyd Dreger of Laserlife points out below. As such, anilox rolls have played an integral part in the quality improvements that flexography has made in recent years in the packaging arena. To get a first-hand perspective on the impact these rolls will continue to have in package printing, packagePRINTING posed a series of questions to executives at the front lines of the industry. pP: Flexographic printing has made great strides in improving its quality to better compete against offset and gravure. How have improvements in anilox roll technology contributed

By Susan Friedman packagePRINTING devoted a separate survey to the ink usage trends among wide-web, flexible packaging printers. The majority of respondents reported printing flexo (75 percent), and revealed about a half and half split between solvent ink (60 percent) and water-based ink (55 percent) usage. The general ink characteristic that carries the most weight with the wide-web segment, according to 55 percent of respondents, is compatibility with a wide range of substrates. "Everyone would like one ink to work on all substrates," says Len Walle, marketing director at Flint Ink, "but a universal ink is not available that will provide quality performance on