NEW TECHNOLOGY

I taught the IOPP’s Packaging Machinery Basics course last week at Frain Group, large and interesting group of attendees. (Next class in March 2012, www.iopp.org for more info) The schedule worked out perfectly and allowed me to visit the GraphExpo show on Sunday. I saw a number of interesting new technologies but two really jumped out at me:

Roland was showing combination inkjet printing and die cutting machine. This is about the footprint of a typical plotter found in an engineering office. It takes roll or sheet stock, prints in high resolution photographic quality color and then die cuts it into carton blanks. One of the interesting features that caught my eye was the use of multiple passes of clear coat printing to provide the look and feel of embossed lettering and other graphics.

This could be very handy for anyone who needs to develop new packaging. Prototypes can be made on the fly. Small production runs for market testing are also easy. More info at:

http://www.rolanddga.com/products/printcut/lec300/

The other one that got me excited was Memjet.

I first heard about Memjet inkjet technology about 10 years ago. I kept hearing it would be commercially available in “just a few months” and I was anxiously awaiting it. The videos and specs were fantastic and I have been drooling to get my hands on one all this time. I finally saw one designed to print envelopes. A bit larger than a large desktop laser printer, it prints very fast in very high resolution. There are lots of other applications as well.

It looks like the envelope printer might work for a client who is currently hand labeling medical pouches. It should be able to eliminate the thermal transfer label printer and the application by printing directly on the pouch.

I see a lot of opportunities for integrating this technology into labelers, baggers, thermoformers and anywhere else high quality printing is needed inline.

More info at www.memjet.com