Last October, two major events featured BOBST’s Competence Centers in Italy: the first in Florence for the inauguration of the new space dedicated to the labels and packaging sector in mid-web, the second in S. Giorgio focused on the production of mono-material flexible packaging
BOBST is determinedly pursuing its vision of the future of label and flexible packaging production based on the four pillars that have characterized the Swiss multinational’s development strategy for some years now: connectivity, digitalization, automation and sustainability.
At the heart of this strategy, BOBST Competence Centers play an important role, and after the recent opening in Atlanta also here in Florence in early October the new 1,200 m2 space was inaugurated, separate from the production plant, dedicated to labels and flexible packaging in mid-web.
In 2025 BOBST will celebrate its first 10 years in the label business, an adventure started with the acquisition of GIDUE, which has allowed BOBST to acquire specific technologies and skills, and growing to such a point that now it is already in the future plans to build a new headquarters in Florence to bring together in one space the approximately 350 people who work there. The site for the group is worth about €100 million in sales for 1,300 machines installed worldwide.
In these 10 years also thanks to the birth of Mouvent, the digital printing innovation center, later integrated into BOBST, the foundations have been laid for growth in both digital and hybrid printing technologies that represent the success of the new Digital Master Series platform.
Key partnerships to deliver added value to the market
About 200 customers attended the “Grand Opening BOBST Competence Center for Labels & Packaging”, welcomed by Matteo Cardinotti, General Manager and Head of the Product Line for Narrow and Medium Web Printing and Converting: “BOBST has experienced exceptional growth in the label industry in recent years, and we are supporting this development by increasing our competencies and services offered to our customers. In Italy, in particular, we have also expanded our production facilities and strengthened our service organization to meet the needs of our European customers”.
Also present at the inaugural event in Florence were technology partners who collaborate with BOBST with their technology solutions for pre-press, and consumables: Esko, Kurz, Avery Dennison, Sun Chemical, Kongsberg PCS, DuPont, and Lohmann. Partnerships that are increasingly essential to serve customers within an ecosystem where each with own expertise brings contribution to offer customers the best of the state of the art at every single stage of the production process. And the glimpse after crossing the threshold of the Competence Center is just that of entering a small trade show, with several corners dedicated to partner solutions and in the center of the large space an island with sofas, tables and applications, just in the style of the latest stands with which BOBST has presented itself at the most important trade shows in the industry, surrounded by the 6 production lines in the showroom.
“The new Competence Center for Labels and Flexible Packaging is the ideal place for printers and brand owners to fully understand BOBST’s vision of the future of packaging manufacturing. Guests at the grand opening saw our full range of printing solutions in action and saw how our innovations and partnerships are shaping developments while discovering how to enhance and simplify their label production process”, Cardinotti concluded.
Integrated end-to-end solutions for labels and flexible packaging
Patrick Graber, Marketing Director at BOBST, presented the major trends in the label and flexible packaging industry that will see flexo and digital printing technologies increasingly as the reference for printing companies, and then moved on to present the All-in-One DIGITAL MASTER 340, Inline Flexo for Labels MASTER M5 and Inline Flexo for Flexible Packaging MASTER M6 presses, which were also featured in three print demos for customers attending the event.
BOBST’s All-in-One concept with inkjet technology was presented with the DIGITAL MASTER 340, printing adhesive labels for the cosmetics industry segment. As for inline flexo, on the BOBST MASTER M5 the production in one step of multilayer labels with oneECG (extended color gamut) technology and DigiFlexo automation was demonstrated to customers, while the M6 printed a film for the production of pouches.
As Patrick Graber pointed out, 2024 was the year of the overtaking of UV Inkjet technology over LEP and digital toner technology, and BOBST Digital Master was the best-selling technology among the All-in-One offerings, contributing to the achievement of 35% market share in the hybrid segment.
Throughout the live demonstrations of the presses, it was possible to appreciate the direct integration to BOBST Connect, the advanced digital platform that offers automation, digitization and connectivity to support sustainable, efficient and profitable production.
“BOBST has made the idea of closed-loop workflow a reality, from PDF to the twin-PDF concept, addressing major industry trends with easy-to-use machines, all orchestrated by BOBST Connect”, -commented Cardinotti – ”our main goal is to provide customers with complete workflows that help them overcome a multitude of market challenges, enabling them to achieve consistent, high-quality results much faster and with little waste, without having to rely on highly skilled operators and all with a view to maximum process simplification”.
At the Competence Center in San Giorgio Monferrato the latest developments in
mono-material flexible packaging were presented
With an open house dedicated to 5.0 wide web flexible packaging BOBST welcomed last October 17 at its’ Competence Centre in San Giorgio Monferrato (AL) about 70 guests including customers and partner companies to discuss the latest developments in sustainable flexible packaging and to witness coating & laminating demos together with partners Sun Chemical and Synaptik.
Nanni Bertorelli, Product Line Director Coating & Laminating, illustrated how gravure printing lines and laminating and coating technologies dedicated to flexible packaging converting are designed and built in S. Giorgio Monferrato.
Alberto Vaglio Laurin, Business Director Southern Europe, presented the whole BOBST range of products dedicated to flexible packaging, giving an overview of flexo printing, gravure printing, laminating and coating technologies, but also those of metallization produced in Manchester, UK, and the challenges faced today by the packaging market in terms of: process variability, design customization, new materials and reduced time to market.
“Converters have to diversify their offerings by exploring new markets, but it is not easy to disentangle themselves in such a complex and competitive landscape., Fortunately in BOBST we have a wide range of solutions delivering quality in an efficient and sustainable manner and therefore offering solutions to these market challenges”, says Vaglio Laurin.
BOBST’s technological innovations for the printing industry, developed to interact with and be integrated within the BOBST CONNECT cloud, include solutions such as the smartGRAVURE package, which comprises oneSET for automatic, off-line, press setup.
The smartGRAVURE package also includes onePRINT for automatic color control, and oneECG to ensure repeatability and color consistency during production. With specific reference to ECG print quality, the BOBST MASTER RS 6003 has been validated by PANTONE for achieving 92.1% of the colors submitted just in an examination that comprised 2369 varied and challeng in Pantone colors, therefore making this the only gravure press in the world with Pantone Validation. And finally for the CI flexo printers present the advantages of smartGPS were highlighted. smartGPS is a solution dedicated to automatic setup of CI flexo presses with a semi-automatic plate mounting system.
Demos to produce sustainable flexible packaging
From theory to practice, with the NOVALAM S 550 purchased by Gerosa Group as protagonist of the first demo, together with a low monomer adhesive by Sun Chemical.
Attilio Borlenghi and Mattia Fontani from Sun Chemical presented the solventless low monomer adhesive used in the first demo and the functional coating used in the second demo to give paper barrier properties required for new paper barrier applications. They were followed by Gianluigi Forquet from Synaptik who presented their gscan technology mounted on the NOVALAM S 550 to automatically measure the amount of adhesive coated.
The second demo featured the brand new BOBST EXPERTLAM 900 BARRIER, a hybrid coater laminator solution. The job was carried out on paper with a heat seal barrier coating from Sun Chemical, shown as a potential solution for outer paper packaging needing moisture barrier for reams of paper or tissue products such as toilet paper. The demo was done at a production speed of 300 m/min, a very good speed considering the difficulties in applying water-based coatings to paper substrates.
This Competence Center also features the now famous LEONARDO Coating Pilot Line, the special machine built by BOBST with all the technologies available in one machine, and available to customers, partner and brand owners to carry out their own R&D trials. Interestingly, this special line, whose waiting list is several months long, is booked mainly for trials on paper-based structures, one of the main trends of todays market, that is involving more and more printers and converters in their experiments in the search for an increasingly recyclable and sustainable end product.
With these two events BOBST continues its’ strategy towards the development of innovative solutions to shape the future of the packaging world, involving technological partners in its Competence Centers, real places of confrontation between the different skills involved within the supply chain. Italy plays a leading role in this journey, in the two industry segments of labeling and flexible packaging, that experience important growth trends, with Italian printing and converting companies supporting with their packaging the Made in Italy exports in the world.
