Sri Lanka’s Flexiprint inaugurates new plant in Colombo

The new facility spread across an area of more than 90,000 sq ft was inaugurated by the country’s Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe.

This factory houses eight Bobst presses, of which the latest was bought in 2017, as well as two Martin Automatic MBS unwind/splicer and six LRD rewinders, a highly automated ink kitchen by DIC, inspection systems, a DuPont Cyrel Fast 1000 TD flexographic platemaking system, anilox rollers from Kocher+Beck and an array of other ancillary equipment.

Sathis Abeywickrama, managing director at Flexiprint, said: ‘We house the maximum number of Bobst and Martin Automatic machines in all of Asia. With our company growing at 10 percent year-on-year, we invest in a new press almost every year. We are now in the process of evaluating our next investment.

‘As for machines from Martin Automatic, these have reduced our wastage significantly by more than 20 percent and enable our flexo presses to reach full potential without unnecessary stops and changeover times.’

Fexiprint has invested in improving efficiency at its plant at every level. From using the most automated machines required for its operations to advanced ink mixing technology that uses basic colors to blend and make any desired shade in required quantity with just a click of a button while also indicating ink inventory. ‘This eliminates any chance of human error. Thus, saves time and wastage, that makes us more efficient,’ added Abeywickrama.

Flexiprint, an ISO 22000:2005 certified company, is primarily a manufacturer of tea tags and envelopes. It started its tea bag tag printing business in 1993 with an 8-color Propheteer press and was the first printer in Sri Lanka to use water-based inks at that time. Abeywickrama gradually added five more Propheteer presses to his artillery and eventually invested in its first Bobst machine in 2005 after its visiting Labelexpo Europe that year.

Read a detailed article on Flexiprint in Labels & Labeling issue 3, 2018