Skanem trials digital plates

 Skanem, one of Europe's largest self-adhesive label printing groups, is trialing digital-plate making at its Skurup, Sweden, plant to assess suitability for wider adoption throughout the group.

'Early indications are that the trials are a success, with digital plates assuring clean and sharper images with better detailing, improved stability during press runs and making it easier and quicker to set up on presses,' said the company in a statement.

Skanem president, Ole Rugland said: 'There are not many producers in self-adhesive labels, particularly in flexographic printing, using digital, but as Europe's largest label group we thought it worthwhile to try the techniques out at the Skurup factory. Flexo printing is getting closer to litho in terms of quality and by getting into digital plate- making and cutting out the film stage, we are getting the quality between the two even closer.'

The group's size - it has ten printing plants in Western Europe - makes it easier for Skanem to develop the new skills required by digital plate-making on one site and then extend the practice to its other plants. Thomas Nilsson, production manager at Skanem Skurup adds: 'When we decided to move from letterpress and offset to UV flexo, digital plate technology was an important part of our strategy.  We invested in a CTP Thermoflex from Creo, which will be producing digital plates for 80 per cent of our jobs by the end of the year.'

Skanem AS operates plants in five countries - Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the UK. It provides label solutions for some of the world's largest companies.  It employs 900 people in 10 printing plants and the turnover in 2003 was 176 million Euro.