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ERA’s packaging and decorative conference successfully held in Barcelona

Munich, December 2017.ERA’s recent Packaging and Decorative Gravure Conference this year took place in early November in the Catalan capital, Barcelona. Over a hundred participants from the European gravure industry attended the two-day event. They witnessed presentations on the status of packaging and decorative gravure printing and technical advancesin the gravure process. ERA Secretary General James Sievercommented on the event: “The conference again showed gravure’s capability to meet the challenges from the market and other technologies, but also demonstrated the confidence of the industry in the future of the gravure process.”

The conference started with a presentation on the challenges for a decorative printer to optimise their process by Dr Andreas Dörfler of Impress, one of the leading producers of decorative and impregnated paper. Theglobal production of paper based decorative surfaces counts for 8,79 million sqm and has shown significant growth for the last five years. He stated that “decorative printing is a world of its own compared to packaging and publication printing”, and there are still “endless possibilities for optimization of theprocess”. An ongoing crucial issue is the set-up and colour matching process which takes between two and four hours until sellable quality can be produced. To improve colour matching Impress is implementing the ACMS system. Another challenge for the decorative printers is the introduction of industrial digital printing which was regarded as a “game-changing technology” replacing gravure. However, the expectations about the possibilities of digital decorative printing have become more realistic: it makes sense in special cases e.g. very small runs and individual orders. In any case, digital decorative printing will not replace gravure in the foreseeable future. Dr Dörfler: “We have just ordered a new rotogravure press”.

Dr Dörflerwasfollowed by Dr Giancarlo Cerutti of OMG Cerutti, who spoke on “new frontiers for gravure printing and converting”. He made an historical excursion explaining how the distribution of consumer goods has changed since the times when food items were sold loose in small grocery shops. Nowadays, all kinds of foodstuffs are offered in supermarkets everywhere and at any time to the consumer which requires modern packaging systems. Quoting his father (“The world needs packaging.”) Dr Cerutti showed gravure’s and Cerutti’s contribution to print packaging material. Their latest innovation is the R98X gravure press allowing a job change-over in less than 30 minutes. But gravure is not only the ideal process to print packaging, there are other interesting markets: the printing of banknotes on polymer offers new possibilities for gravure. Dr Cerutti: “Polymer notes are cleaner, more secure and more durable than paper banknotes.”

With a colourful presentation Rudi Weis-Schiff of Janoschka then drew the attention of the audience to gravure’s potential in the emerging markets in Asia such as Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. He stated that these markets are “very competitive, fast and one has to know about the cultural background in Asia to do business there”. But the potential is enormous as the packaging consumption per person in Asia is 20 times less than in Europe. And gravure is the preferred process in these countries with a market share of above 90 % vs. flexography. Altogether they count for almost 1 500 gravure presses and more than 800 000 engraved cylinders:truly impressive figures.

In a joint presentation Frank Woltering andDan Pulling from Esko spoke on colour matching through the print process. Colour counts for 60 % of the purchasing decision. They emphasized that “a late colour change or adjustment causes lost profit and higher costs”. To avoid frictions there are now solutions available to combine process and spot colours in the same job.

“Hybrid printing – combiningdigital with gravure” was the theme ofThomas Schmid of press manufacturer Rotodecor. It would integrate digital components into existing services, and so avoid the uncontrolled disruptiveness of a digital transformation in which customers take to new suppliers or start printing themselves.

Jan Breiholdt of Hell Gravure showed Hell’s latest solutions concerning printing heads and engravers for decorative and packaging gravure. He focused on the CellEye camera and volume-oriented testcut process, which help meet the challenge that each engraver should perform identically.

ESA technologyand its impact on quality and safetywas presented by Rolf Semmler of Enulec, which recently joined the ERA. Printing without electrostatic assist (ESA) or with single-polarity systems can lead to uncontrolled electric discharges, and Enulec systems have been integrated into the control systems of leading European gravure press manufacturers.

Dr Kai Baer of Adphos Digital Printing demonstrated “innovative drying technology for water and solvent based inks and coatings”. Their solution is a near infra-red (NIR) energy source with a wavelength of 820 nm, which is absorbed by the solvent but not the substrate. His presentationcontinued with a live demonstration during the afternoon coffee break.

The conference concluded with presentations of Achim Kurrek of Moog on sheet fed gravure and its potential for luxury packaging printing, and Dr Jens Klabunde of Oxea on n-propyl acetate solvents as an alternative to conventional ethyl acetate solvents. The latter talk gave interesting indications on cost savings and showed results of trials carried out with n-propyl acetate solvents.

The political unrest in Barcelona concerning the demand for Catalan independence from Spain by the regional Catalan government did not affect the ERA event. The general strike, which was called by the separatist movement for 8 November, the second day of the conference, was actually ignored by the vast majority of the people. However, some rioters and separatist activists were able to block the traffic on the highways leading into and out of the city for a while. Thus ERA’s plant tour programme, including visits to the Impress factory in the northern outskirts of Barcelona and to the HP headquarters and demonstration centre in Sant Cugat, had to be reduced to the visit to HP. In 2018 the ERA Packaging and Decorative Gravure Conference will return to Italy. The industry is invited to come to the Piedmont capital of Turin on 7-8 November 2018.

Photos and captions are available through the following link:

ERA:

The European Rotogravure Association (ERA) has developed into the leading international organization forgravure since its founding in 1956. Members are companies from Europe and abroad covering the sectors of publication, packaging and decorative rotogravure printing as well as associated suppliers (e.g. paper and ink producers, producers of printing machines and leading cylinder producers).President is Manfred Janoschka,Secretary General is James Siever.

European Rotogravure Assocation (E.R.A.) e.V.

Swakopmunder Strasse 3

81827 München

Germany

Tel.: +49 (89) 439 5051 e-mail:

Fax: +49 (89) 439 4107website: