ALFT Opens Flexo Plate Production Facility ALFT Packaging has opened a new flexo packag- ing production plant in Kotugoda, Sri Lanka. To bring plate production in-house, ALFT installed a FLEXCEL NX 4260 System at the new production facility, providing plates for its new Windmöller & Hölscher Miraflex II press. “Investing in in-house flexo platemaking and printing gives us total control of production and delivers a host of benefits that are relevant to our customers,” said Chairman Lakshman De Fonseka. “The faster turnaround with flexo is a particular advantage, enabling packaging design changes — to color or for regional variations — to be expedit- ed. With gravure, we’re talking about lead times of three to four weeks for cylinders, which all have to be imported. And if a cylinder gets damaged during production, you wait ten to 12 days for a replacement. Compare that to the 90 minutes to make new FLEXCEL NX Plates, and the advantages are obvious.” While Lakshman acknowledges that gravure is still the dominant process in the South and South- east Asian markets, in the future he foresees the steady migration to flexo. “It’s just a question of
changing customers’ mindsets, and the best way to do that is to show them the results. So, we are grad- ually moving work previously gravure printed to flexo, with our customers’ consent of course. Our approach is that whenever there’s a change to a product, we take the opportunity to propose a flexo version. In our experience, as long as we can show brand owners that flexo quality is every bit as good as the gravure, they’re very comfortable with the change. Especially when they get all the additional efficiency benefits that come with flexo.”
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Flexo Market News January 2, 2023 11
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