Study Presented at FTA Forum Finds New CI Register Control Technology Substantially Reduces Flexo CI Make-Ready Time And Material Used

The results of a year long study into the process of setting register on Flexo CI presses were presented in the flexible packaging session at the 2002 FTA Forum in Washington D.C. on May 7th.

The goal of the study was to understand how color-to-color register is typically set on a Flexo CI press and to evaluate the effectiveness and quantify the impact of new closed-loop register technology for those machines.
The study was conducted by John Thome, BST Pro Mark® Vice President of Marketing with the cooperation of five different flexible packaging converters in Europe, Canada and the United States.

It discovered a very consistent process used throughout the industry to set register on press, which is typically done one color at a time with all decks down, and found no significant differences between geared and gearless presses in this respect.

At one location the time and material used to set proper color-to-color register as it is commonly done in the industry was benchmarked. It was found that the average eight color job takes 10.72 minutes and uses 1,112 feet of material to set color-to-color register.

Accuracy tests at more than one location found that the new technology would set color-to-color register to within 60.0004”.

After benchmarking the process, a new closed-loop register control system from BST Pro Mark® was installed on a press in a production environment, and comparitive data generated. It was found that using the new closed-loop register control technology reduced the time for setting color-to-color register from 11.72 minutes per job to under three minutes per job and decreased the amount of material used from 1,112 feet per job to less than 100 feet per job.

The study calculated the savings, impact on overall press productivity and Return On Investment from such a system, and found that an eight color press running only ten jobs a week would enjoy a payback of under a year. Presses running 25 jobs per week would realize annual savings of over $250,000 per year.

BST Pro Mark® markets both a dedicated system for make-ready running register control of Flexo CI presses, the AR200SA, and make-ready/running register control as an option for it’s BST Premius DIGITAL web inspection system.

Persons interested in obtaining a copy of the complete study should contact jthome@bstpromark.com, or download a copy of the presentation at www.bstpromark.com.

BST Pro Mark® is the worlds’ largest manufacturer of web inspection systems for converting applicaitons, with over 10,000 system installed in 65 countries worldwide. The company is a division of BST GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Electro-Mechanik GmbH and member of Elexis AG.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
John D. Thome
BST Pro Mark®
650 W. Grand Avenue, Suite 301
Elmhurst, Illinois 60126
E mail: jthome@bstpromark.com
Telephone: 630.833.9900
Fax: 630.833.9909
www.bstpromark.com

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