Komori hosted a packaging open house on 12 March at its Tsukuba Plant and the Komori Graphic Technology Center (KGC) in Japan.
Held mainly for overseas customers considering a packaging press, the open house explained the company’s technology to 96 customers from 15 countries through a seminar, factory tour, printing demonstration, KGC tour, and a lecture by a customer.’
In the seminar Komori stressed h
ow packaging has become printing’s most promising sector, involving Chambon presses, sheetfed offset presses and digital printing systems.
Komori sees its Lithrone GX series as offering high productivity with heavy stock in long runs by means of stable high-speed operation. The technology is designed to deliver smooth short makereadies even when using special colours along with high print quality.
Lithrone GX also provides many variations with a range of configurations and specifications along with reduced environmental impact and superior operability, according to Komori.
Komori also emphasised the benefits of systems that support high packaging productivity and high quality.
Significant improvement of print quality and productivity as well as reduced paper waste can be realised by co-ordinating PDC-SX (color control/automatic registration/Smart Feedback), which advances high-level print quality control by digitising print quality, and PQA-S (print quality inspection/colour control) with the KHS-AI integrated control system, said Komori.
In addition, the Lithrone GX40 is equipped with several systems for maintaining high print quality in packaging.
KHS-AI (KHS system with self-learning) provides improved co-ordination with PDC-SX and PQA-S in addition to air and register presets. Previous settings are quickly recalled, improving repeat jobs, which are frequent in package printing.
PDC-SX (Spectral Print Density Control SX Model) uses a colour correction function that enables accurate feedback even with special colours. It is also equipped with a function that facilitates die cutting by adjusting the print image to the paper position.
PQA-S (Print Quality Assessment System for Sheetfed) can be specified with a sheet numbering system that prints a number on each sheet on the feeder board and a quality management system based on package die-cutting data in units of blanks.
The day’s highlights included high-speed nonstop operation for long runs; improved operability and time reduction for changeovers of short runs and colour changes; stable quality in high-speed operation (colour variations, circumferential gradations, streaking and ghosting); strengthened inspection system (in-line inspection/PDF comparison); printing on both sides of heavy stock.
In the first demonstration a six-colour 40-inch sheetfed offset Lithrone GX40 (GLX-640+C) was used to print pharmaceuticals boxes (five colours plus varnish) at 18,000sph.
The press was then used to print confectionery boxes 2,000 sheets (five colours plus varnish).
In a second demonstration an eight-colour 40-inch reverse printing sheetfed offset Lithrone GX40RP (GLX-840RP) was used to print gift boxes 200 sheets (front, four colors; back, two colours) with a maximum printing speed of 16,500sph, then gift boxes 400 sheets (front, four colours; back, one colour) at 16,500sph.
In the third demonstration a six-colour 29-inch sheetfed offset Lithrone S29 (LS-629+C) printed cosmetics product 200 sheets of El Card (four colours plus varnish) at 16,000sph, then cosmetics product 200 sheets (four colours plus white) on PET/K size at a maximum printing speed of 10,000sph.
