Medical Device Link.

Originally Published PMPN March 2002

OUR VIEW

Flexography can help companies speed bold new packages to store shelves.

Terri McConnell, executive director, High Definition Flexo Consortium

A recent study conducted by the High Definition Flexo Consortium (Dayton, OH), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting flexography, revealed that today's consumer makes a brand decision at the store shelf in less than seven seconds and has less brand loyalty as a result of being faced with more product launches, brands, and SKUs than ever before. To better attract consumers, product marketers and brand managers continually reinvent and repackage their products. They see the package as an extension of the product itself.

To keep up with these new package designs, today's packaging buyers demand shorter runs with the option to make frequent design changes. They look at innovative constructions with onboard coupons and promotions. They specify high-impact graphics, new materials, and a host of special decorations to make their products stand out from the competition. Sensitive to the penalties of product launch delays, buyers demand fast turnarounds. At the same time, business consolidations and preferred vendor practices have reduced the overall number of printing service providers. Packaging buyers have never asked so much from so few.

Traditional printing and converting processes have struggled to keep up with the shorter run requests and tighter turnarounds that these new packaging trends have demanded. To the surprise of many, flexography has positioned itself as a valuable solution.

Flexography today is so dissimilar to the flexography of the past that it's unfair to refer to them as the same process. Consider the processwide technology advances that have been made in the last few years alone:

• The use of electronic prepress imaging systems and photopolymer plates has resulted in improved overall print quality, producing finer detail and sharper process-color images with greater shelf impact.
• Laser direct-to-plate technology affords results that challenge offset while eliminating the need for film negatives and providing substantially lower dot gain and better registration.
• Higher line screen, laser-engraved anilox rolls with new surface properties, and improved ink-delivery systems have been developed that provide greater control over the on-press factors that affect image reproduction fidelity.
• Advances in UV and water-based ink and coating formulations help give flexo a more durable, glossy look that springs graphics from packaging, and make the process more environmentally friendly.
• New label, board, and film substrates are being engineered to address a nearly infinite range of specialized packaging constructions.
• Automated, flexible-platform printing presses offer multisubstrate printing capabilities, precise web temperature and registration controls, rapid make-ready and job changeovers, and in-line finishing converting options such as perforating, scoring, embossing, laminating, and rotary or platen die-cutting.

These new technologies have added greater flexibility to the process. Modern flexography can help improve the quality of packaging while simultaneously cutting costs and time to shelf. It has become a legitimate, viable alternative to other traditional processes like offset or gravure printing and has managed to surpass them in specialized areas of substrate flexibility and in-line converting, while at the same time delivering faster job turnaround with more-competitive pricing.

Terri McConnell currently serves as executive director for the High Definition Flexo Consortium; prepress editor of packagePRINTING Magazine; and is the president of Concept Co., an Ohio-based marketing and communications firm specializing in packaging and the graphic arts. She can be reached at terri@conceptcompany.com or 937/299-9686.

Copyright ©2002 Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News