Uniflexo boosts quality consistency with GSE Dispensing’s Colorsat Match

Uniflexo Industria Grfica Ltda, one of Brazil’s leading manufacturers of self-adhesive labels and PVC shrink wrap packaging, is set to improve quality consistency, reduce ink wastage and cut make-ready times by investing in a Colorsat Match gravimetric ink dispensing system from GSE Dispensing of the Netherlands.

The Match is specifically designed to help narrow web converters prepare the required PMS and spot-colors with total precision, faster and with minimal manual input. With a dispensing range of between 1 and 5kg, UV-curable and water-based flexo inks are prepared, with precision from up to 20, components, in only four minutes.

Thanks to proprietary software called IMS (Ink Management Software), the dispensing system calculates the exact dosage requirements for the print run. Moreover, any surplus inks remaining from a previous job can be easily calculated into new recipes – an arduous task if calculated manually. 

Other benefits of IMS are said to include a database facility logging all recipe-components against each job, real-time ink stock availability, and barcoding of surplus inks after a production run, for efficient stockholding. 

The arrival of the new system means Uniflexo will no longer need to rely on external suppliers for special recipes, which sometimes took many days to arrive. The problem of waste, due to unusable left-over inks from previous jobs will be eliminated. Individual ink raw materials can be traced clearly to each job. And in the case of repeat orders, where an identical recipe is simply recalled, the company will be able to assure its customers of absolute quality consistency, time and time again.

Flavio Campagnola, general manager of Uniflexo, commented: ‘The new dispensing system offers many benefits which will help boost their competitiveness: it creates a fully automated, ink logistics operation, giving us absolute control of a workflow in which our inks are ready, virtually instantaneously, without delay.’

Uniflexo supplies a wide range narrow-web packaging solutions to a host of leading names in the food and beverage, healthcare, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries, including Colgate, L’Oreal and Merck & Co. The company has six flexo presses, from Nilpeter and Omet, which also feature added-value printing technologies including rotary screen and hot-stamping. The Colorsat Match will provide the recipes for all flexo printing requirements.

With supermarkets taking an ever greater share of the groceries market, high-impact decorative packaging, which attracts consumers’ attention at the point of sale, plays an important role in making a brand successful. As a result, there are more colors on a label, and unique brand-specific colors are increasingly used, as a means of differentiating the product on a crowded shelf. Furthermore, there is less room for error, as customers demand exactly the same look and feel for their products around the world.

Flavio added: ‘All these factors have made ink preparation a very complex, precision affair, which can no longer be carried out manually: it is too slow, and too prone to error, and that can prove extremely costly. The Colorsat Match, however, brings our ink preparation procedures up to the same high standard of professionalism that we offer at all other stages of our manufacturing process. This will enable us to meet the uncompromising packaging and label quality expectations of our global brand owner customers.’