Omet shows first Chinese-built Flexy

At an open house held in Shanghai, Omet presented its first press wholly assembled at the company’s 4,000 square meter plant in Suzhou, China. The Flexy press on display was an 8-color, 330mm wide, shaft-driven machine.

‘Omet’s strategy is to invest into the Asian market – especially China,’ said (Joe) Zhou Dongyan, manager of Omet’s Chinese operations. ‘This market is very important and has the potential to produce high quality machines.’

The Chinese-built Flexy press can be specified in any size configuration, with options including screen, foiling and gravure units. In an attempt to keep costs down for this market, Omet is, where possible, using local suppliers of ancillary equipment such as UV lamps, corona treatment and video inspection equipment. Some press components, including gears, are also being manufactured locally. ‘This certainly makes local technical support easier,’ comments Omet’s international sales manager Paolo Grasso. ‘Other press components will be manufactured here as soon as the quality is good enough.’

Omet will not build servo-drive Flexy ‘S’ machines in China, says Grasso: ‘We do not need servos to print with stability and we have printed down to 20 micron PE on a Flexy, so we do not see this as an issue.’

Grasso says Omet plans to export locally-built Flexy presses outside China: ‘Step by step we will move to export to SE Asia and India in the next one to two years.’

Click here for more stories about Omet on L&L.com.