Last September 1st, the world’s first Markplate ® flexographic plate marking system was installed in a printing production cycle at Termoplast Nord, a leading company in the production and printing of flexible packaging in polypropylene and polyethylene with both solvent and UV-led printing
By the will of its founder and CEO Dante Zecchel, Termoplast Nord has always been strongly devoted to technological innovations, and attentive to seizing any type of market opportunity. The continuous expansion of the company, which has reached 8 printing lines, has exponentially increased the number of flexographic cliché stored in the warehouse, it was therefore necessary to find a solution to identify photopolymer cliché precisely and without the possibility of error.
It is therefore not surprising that attention has fallen precisely on one of the innovations that has most intrigued the flexo pre-press market in the last year, the result of the ingenuity of Andrea Zanatto who about a year ago presented his innovative system to the flexographic market, in collaboration with the staff of Esagrafica who represents the start-up on the Italian market, taking care of the commercial part.
The benefits of Markplate® in a printing environment
Although this innovative system may seem conceived for the exclusive use of cliché producers, in reality, also by virtue of the latest developments, it is clear how it can be of great support to printing companies, not only for the management of cliché archive, certainly a very important aspect, but also and above all for its functionality, combined with the software system, which make Markplate® the main way of sharing data for safe and optimal use throughout the packaging production cycle.
The Markplate® system, thanks to the creation of a two-dimensional code inside the cliché, easily readable by normal readers, has allowed to eliminate the subjectivity in the recognition of the photopolymer plate, allowing to reorganize the cliché warehouse, and to have a clear view of the stock, solving the problem of shared plates which, especially on food packaging, were a critical factor for the company that is BRC certified.
In addition to marking, the Markplate® system has allowed to improve the exchange of information with plate producers. In fact, thanks to a cloud platform, the data relating to each single job are shared between pre-press services and Termoplast Nord, standardizing the request for remakes and improving technical communication.
The system has proven to be flexible, allowing both new clichés and archive clichés to be marked without particular difficulties despite the various types of plates and their variable wear conditions.
In addition to the logistical aspect, Markplate®, thanks to the connection between the plate and the countless information of the job, has opened new perspectives on the sharing of information relating to the entire flexographic printing process, so much so that there is soon the intention to expand its use to interconnect both printing machines and plate mounting machines by including in the metadata of the Markplate® system much more specific information such as colorimetric values, viscosity, anilox, speed, double-sided tape, paths, etc., to improve repeatability and reducing makeready times.
Face to face with Dante Zecchel, Termoplast Nord
Why did Markplate® convince you at such an extent to be the first printers to install it?
“Certainly, a fundamental factor was the possibility of marking archive plates as well as new plates, this gave us the possibility of equipping production processes with the new technology without compromising, immediately implementing non-subjective picking systems and controls in the production process. The other feature that made us choose Markplate® was the management of plates shared between multiple jobs and colors, the system is based on the plate, not the color or the job, a change of perspective that allows you to manage shared plates very efficiently. Finally, the system presents characteristics of great versatility and integration with existing systems”.
Have you already noticed any advantages in the relationship with your trusted pre-press services?
“Some of our pre-press services provide us with plates by pre-compiling the data, this greatly simplifies technical communications, reduces errors and allows us to carry out preventive checks; it also standardizes the way in which the data are provided to us and the request for remakes is universally coded among all pre-press services, in fact it is a new transversal standard between us who print and those who produce the plates, as each single plate is uniquely coded without the possibility of error”.
In an ideal system the technologies are already interconnected for data exchange, so why is it useful to equip ourselves with Markplate®?
“The system adopted allows us to link the information not only to the job or the colors but also to the single photopolymer plate, which itself becomes a vector of information that passes from department to department and can be read with a normal reader; based on where it is queried it can provide precise information associated with it and transmit this information to any machinery”.
