KODAK Flexographic Solutions Offer Affordable Sustainability Without Compromise
Sustainability has been a hot topic of debate among flexographic plate manufacturers as the industry searches for information that will allow them to make the best technology choice for flexographic plate making. Conflicting information and complex analyses regarding the environmental impact of thermal, water wash, and solvent plate making have done little to answer these questions and have often served to confuse rather than educate.
The KODAK FLEXCEL NX System addresses sustainability throughout the flexographic printing process. The FLEXCEL NX System allows users to reduce substrate waste during set-up and reduce the number of plates used providing users with a positive impact to the bottom line and with no compromise to printing performance.
KODAK FLEXCEL NX Digital Flexographic System can reduce substrate waste Industry players agree that the input with the greatest environmental impact to the flexographic printing process is substrate usage. So, a flexographic plate should be chosen to optimize productivity and minimize substrate waste in the pressroom. The principal sustainability goals of the FLEXCEL NX System is to enable users to save as much substrate as possible - all other production components follow proportionally (ink, solvent, drying time and energy).
The FLEXCEL NX System is designed to produce plates with predicatble flat top dots, deep relief and strong shoulder angles. KODAK FLEXCEL NX Plates are faster to color, resistant to substrate wear, exhibit wide impression latitude and require less cleaning. The FLEXCEL NX System delivers faster makeready times, fewer cleaning stoppages, and fewer plate changes, in fact, FLEXCEL NX System users have reported, on average, a 20% reduction in the amount of printing substrate generated during press set-up. | 
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Reduction in plate usage with the KODAK FLEXCEL NX System
Stated quite simply, using fewer plates can have a greater sustainability impact than any choice that can be made in plate making technology. By choosing a plate that enables you to make accurate plates the first time, run longer on one set of plates, store and reuse plates without remakes, make greater use of process color and use more combination plates, the total number of plates required for the duration of a print job can be reduced. The FLEXCEL NX System delivers on each one of these factors.
Make accurate plates the first time
The FLEXCEL NX System enables true 1:1 reproduction from digital file to plate and is capable of generating consistent dots as small as 10 microns. Equipped with KODAK SQUARESPOT Imaging Technology, the KODAK FLEXCEL NX Imager produces extremely accurate dots on the KODAK FLEXCEL NX Thermal Imaging Layer that are a match to the pixels in the digital file. The intimate contact between the imaging layer and the KODAK FLEXCEL NX Plate during the lamination step ensures accurate transfer of these dots from the layer to the plate. Superior image quality on plate and outstanding predictability leads to less remakes and less wasted plates. | 
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 | Run longer on one set of plates, store and reuse plates without remakes
To truly get cost and productivity benefits, a printer needs to be able to get the most out of each and every plate. Making new plates and stopping and restarting the press to clean or change plates are real time and material burners. The flat tops and stable bases of the dots created with the FLEXCEL NX System distribute pressure more evenly than the bullet-shaped dots of normal digital flexographic plates. The result is increased plate durability enabling longer run lengths and consistent dot gain and color. In addition, full amplitude, flat top dots mean that plates won't plug with ink as quickly, avoiding press stoppages for cleaning, which increase downtime and often destroy highlight dots. |
Make greater use of process color
Users often feel that it is safer to use spot colors to get consistent color with digital flexographic plates, but using spot colors requires additional materials and time. Process color separations typically use fewer plates per run and improve productivity by reducing the time it takes to set up and switch jobs. The FLEXCEL NX System prints dots as small as 10 microns, allowing even subtle gradations in the highlights and the use of all 256 grey levels. The FLEXCEL NX System enables process color printing to achieve predictable print results with superior contrast and image definition. FLEXCEL NX Plate's flat top dot structure ensures a higher ink transfer is achieved without loss of image quality and results in expanded color gamut capabilities when using process color printing. | 
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| Use more combination plates
Many users avoid the use of combination plates for fear that they may compromise print quality. The printing of halftones and solid line or text copy using the same plate can be difficult as halftone dots require a minimum impression and ink film thickness while solids need maximum impression and ink film thickness for optimum printability. Digital flexographic plates are very sensitive to variations in pressure, which leads to inconsistent printing. Rounded, bullet-shaped dots result in larger printed dots with increased pressure. However, the dots produced by the FLEXCEL NX System are flat on top, so dot gain remains more consistent with over impression. The FLEXCEL NX System makes combination plates a high quality option for reducing the number of plates used in a print run. |
