How to reduce waste in label printing

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In the label production process, tiny pollutants in the air are one of the culprits causing waste (scrap and production stoppages). The printing factory is currently faced with this problem and can not do anything. The printing company believes that the material supplier film is not clean, and the supplier accused the printing factory of the bad working environment. Both sides are caught in a dilemma.

Label materials are very sensitive to electrostatic accumulation. The accumulated electrostatic image is a magnet attracting contaminants around the surface of the raw material. These contaminants may come from packaging, clothing fibers, hair, cutting dust, ink, metal dust, etc., all of which can cause printing problems.

There are two main reasons why airborne pollutants can cause waste in flexographic printing plants:

1. Contaminants are transferred from the substrate to the impression cylinder. This situation can cause image errors in printed products. The general approach is to shut down and clean all the impression cylinders. The cleaning process typically requires 1 to 2 hours of downtime, resulting in 50/100 meters of waste.

2. Contaminants are transferred directly from the substrate to the plate roller. This situation causes a solid particle on the plate roller. If the UV ink is used in a very thin and very sticky situation, this situation will be even worse, and a very small dust will stick to the plate to form repetitive errors. The operator uses a soft brush or rag to clean the running plate cutter. First of all, such an approach is not safe. In addition, if it cannot be removed, the operator must stop, clean all the plate rollers, re-register the machine, and check the print and quality again. This process will produce 50 meters of waste, loss of production time, and more importantly, the problem has not been fundamentally resolved.

Solution - Cleaning Substrates

It sounds very simple and obvious, but what do you use to clean the substrate?

For the past six years, Teknek in the UK has been dedicated to introducing and promoting the benefits of contact-based cleaning technology for the label printing industry. This innovative cleaning method was originally developed for the electronics industry and is now being selected and used by the world's major printing equipment manufacturers and label printing companies to integrate into their production systems.

Use Tecnico's special polymerization roller to clean the substrate. The cleaning roller removes dry, separate contaminants from the substrate and transfers it to TycoCorp's unique counter-wound roll. When sticky paper is full of contaminants, replace the sticky paper and continue cleaning without interruption. Tecnico's cleaning technology removes pollutants as small as 2 microns from the surface of the substrate.

How to save it?

The use of Tyco's cleaning systems in label printing production results in reduced scrap and downtime.

For example, a 4-color 345 mm flexo press runs different printing materials. Under normal conditions, 8 hours of operation per shift will have 4 solid particles on the plate roller. The installation of the Tynecol cleaning system based on extensive empirical experience will reduce the likelihood of more than half of the production of solid particles.

Suppose Tyco's cleaning system only prevents one downtime/shift (typically more than 2 times during the process), 20 minutes per downtime (minimum estimate), approximately 100 meters of waste, and 1 year of 50 years of printing. , Weekly production for 5 days.

Save label raw material calculation results:

1 press per year saves raw materials=1005x50=25,000x0.345=8625 square meters

For the past six years, Tyco has installed 1,200 cleaning machines in the label printing industry in Europe.

Conservative calculations:

It is obvious that in the past six years, Tyco has saved about 36 million square meters of raw materials for the label printing industry and reduced downtime by 350,000 hours. These data are very conservative calculations and do not include the costs of ink, electricity, labor, etc., associated with printing production. The contacted substrate cleaning promoted by Technico has helped companies significantly save resources and reduce waste, and changed the label printing industry's understanding of the handling of raw material pollutants.