The Time and Money Saving Guide for the Flexographic Printer FlexoGuide is a free service of All Printing Resources, Inc. (APR). It is intended to keep our customers informed of new solution-oriented products, technical tips, saving opportunities, and APR services. Previous issues of FlexoGuide are available here.   Tech Tip 1 - Organizing Your Digital Workspace Arranging Adobe Pallets Tech Tip 2 - "Ghosting" - Possible Causes and Remedies Tech Tip 3 - Formulas for Plate Distortions New Flexo Prepress Training Classes Announced APR introduces its RFID-Based Inventory Management System for real time management of inventories at customer locations. (Can be seen at Print '05, booth 19041.) GretagMacbeth introduces ProfileMaker 5 Packaging solution, tailored to meet the color management needs of the imaging workflow in the packaging market for flexo New Bieffebi Unica 343 V allows you to mount directly from your prepress job file for improved accuracy, repeatability, and productivity. Esterlam Synthetic Doctor Blades... PC Industries' Viper Offline Proofing System...  
Tech Tip 1 Organizing Your Digital Workspace - Arranging Adobe Pallets To be more efficient when working in any application it is important to have a well-organized workspace and to learn frequently used keyboard shortcuts. In this tech tip, we will review features for arranging palettes in Adobe applications. We will specifically look at a file in Adobe Illustrator... Provided by Catherine Haynes, APR Director of Training Tech Tip 2 "Ghosting" - Possible Causes and Remedies Ghosting is usually considered the presence of a faint image of a design in solid printing areas that is not intended to receive that portion of the image. Ghosting was inherited mostly from the advent of the doctor blade chambers. In most cases, ghosting occurs when the anilox cannot recover enough ink to give the required complete coverage. Ghosting problems are usually more prevalent in certain colors such as blues and greens. The idea behind eliminating or reducing ghosting is... Provided by Gary Schollmeyer, APR Technical Support Manager Tech Tip 3 Formulas for Plate Distortions We are often asked for the formulas to determine plate distortions. The plate cylinder repeat must be known for both distortion formulas. If the K-Factor is known than you can determine both the distorted repeat and the distortion percentage. The distorted repeat is simply the plate cylinder repeat minus the K-Factor. The distortion percentage can then be calculated... Provided by Catherine Haynes, APR Director of Training  New Prepress Training Program Dates 
Prepress for Flexography Topics:
Advanced Photoshop Topics
Prepress for Flexography 2-Day Training Program - October 11 & 12 Customized versions of the above programs or special dates for these programs are available for groups of four or more. To register for either of the courses online, please go to: https://www.teamflexo.com/training/APRprepressRegister.asp  APR introduces its RFID-Based Inventory Management System for realtime management of inventories at customer locations.
RFID is an excellent real-time business tool that helps better manage supply chains, increase profits, and decrease costs by improving visibility (and confidence) into your inventory management system to enable overall inventory levels, labor costs and safety stocks to be reduced.  Introducing APR's RFID-based SUPPLYSENTRY built on cutting-edge RFID technology from Intermec with customized software developed by SystemsLogix and Diversified Data. The system automatically scans inventory items as they enter or exit a preconfigured portal. How SUPPLYSENTRY Works: 
1 Desired inventory levels are established for all items supplied by APR. Often inventory amounts on hand at the customers facility can be reduced because the system will be tracking inventory usage in real time, 24 hours per day. 2 All items supplied by APR will have on them commissioned RFID "smart" labels. 3 The items are loaded onto a pallet, which passes through APR's exit portal and is shipped to the Customer location. 4 The pallet is received at the Customer's site, and enters through the portal into the inventory storage area. The system adds the new items to the inventory. 5 When an item is removed from the inventory storage area, the system marks the item "used", and the inventory level for that item is decremented. The new quantity on hand is then checked against the item's preset level. 6 If an item is at the minimum level, a replenishment notice is automatically sent to the Customer to advise that a replenishment is required or can be sent automatically to APR for immediate order replenishment. All order history is available on APR's fully integrated e-commerce site. SUPPLYSENTRY is designed to make managing inventory simple, efficient, and more accurate than traditional methods. It is customizable to fit the customer's business rules and supply chain workflows. SUPPLYSENTRY effectively integrates into existing business processes because it takes advantage of the data structures that are already supported in enterprise databases and other software applications. For more information on this product, please call us at 1-800-445-4017, or e-mail us at info@teamflexo.com. GretagMacbeth introduces ProfileMaker 5 Packaging 
ProfileMaker 5 Packaging solution is tailored to meet the color management needs of the imaging workflow in the packaging market for flexo, gravure, offset and inkjet printing environments. It introduces the open ICC standard to complex multicolor scenarios and leads to reliable color communication. Now producing an ICC color managed workflow has never been easier for the packaging printer. PM5 Packaging can dramatically accelerate your time-to-market and significantly reduce your production costs with these key features:
Featuring modules to manage all of your color imaging devices and processes
Add color measurement that meets your budget and automation needs
For more information on this product, please call us at 1-800-445-4017, or e-mail us at info@teamflexo.com. New Bieffebi Unica 343 V allows you to mount directly from your prepress job file for improved accuracy, repeatability, and productivity. 
Bieffebi has introduced a new version of the Unica series (Unica 343V) for the mounting of flexo printing plates utilizing the actual electronic job file, thus allowing for greater accuracy and productivity. This new software developed by BIEFFEBI (patent pending) allows you to download relevant generated files in JPG format (with a 300dpi suggested resolution), to use it as mounting reference; in this way the operator will have available the microdots, the crosses and the plate image. To further simplify the operation it is possible to load the file of the mounting layout to have available automatically the position of the plates on the cylinder/air mandrel. Like all other Unica series, jobs can be mounted on cylinders and/or sleeves of printing presses with gears or that are gearless. Bieffebi's new evolutionary UNICA 343 V allows you to mount all types of plates utilizing microdots, register marks or graphic elements within the job.
The camera mounting system consisting of 2 17" touch screen monitors and 2 zoom cameras with 12x to 32x magnification and adjustable focus which ensure a high level of viewing on the whole range of considered print repeats. Each camera is provided with a LED's circle which features an adjustable luminous intensity for a constant operation quality. The two cameras, placed on the upper cross bar, are supported by a ball bushing double guide which guarantee stability and accuracy. Each camera features a visualised centesimal control of the position. Motorised rotation of the plate cylinder/air mandrel (W axis) is controlled by a DC motor and pedal or Numerical control; it does not have any mechanical limits in the 360 degrees division. The UNICA 343 V is provided with a 3.2 GHz Intel Pentium4 Processor For more information on this product, please call us at 1-800-445-4017, or e-mail us at info@teamflexo.com.  Viper Offline Proofing System - an easy to use solution to improve quality, reduce waste, and increase productivity for critical proofing applications. The Viper Offline Proofing system is an affordable, easy to operate system equipped with a scanner (flat bed or feed-through) and a CPU. The system scans full - repeat images and compares them to a stored master image. The operator is alerted to defects onscreen and through an alarm (light stack and horn). After each scan a custom report is generated that gives pertinent information about the job. The system is available with either a Flatbed Scanner - scans images up to 12' x 17" with a resolutions up to 3600 dpi - or Feed-Through Scanner - scans images up to 36" x 48" field of view with a resolutions up to 400 dpi. The system includes:
For more information on this product, please call us at 1-800-445-4017, or e-mail us at info@teamflexo.com. Esterlam Synthetic Doctor Blades are setting new performance and safety standards in today's coating, laminating and litho coater applications. Utilizing the latest developments in advanced polymer technology, the innovative Esterlam blade designs give you greater consistency and control over coat weights from the start to the finish of your run. Greater control means instant start-up, increased yields and improved productivity. Precision engineered with special self lubricating characteristics, Esterlam synthetic doctor blades will give you increased blade life, while significantly reducing roller wear and damage. In many cases this will mean over double the normal life of a roller compared with using abrasive and dangerous steel. The result, less money spent on roller and blade replacement and a safer working environment for your operators. 
Suitable for all coating processes including pressure sensitive, magnetic and specialty coating applications, Esterlam doctor blades are successfully run on all major machine types including Kroenert, Bachofen & Meier and Polytype. Whether coating paper, film, fabric or foil Esterlam doctor blades will give you the same cost saving, production and safety benefits already experienced by leading corporations worldwide including Rexam, 3M, SONY, ICI, DuPont Avery and many more. In addition, Esterlam advanced range of products are setting new performance and safety standards in today's Litho coater systems. Suitable for all major press makes including Heidelberg, MAN Roland and Komori, Esterlam doctor blades are successfully running in major installations world-wide. Compatible with retrofit systems including Tresu, Printco and H&B, Esterlam blades are now the first choice for many litho printers. Since developing the concept of 'synthetic doctor blades' and introducing the first prototypes in the early 1970's, Esterlam, with over 25 years experience have developed an unparalleled range of synthetic doctor blades for many printing and coating applications that have placed them at the forefront of synthetic doctor blade technology. Working closely with suppliers, major corporations and OEM's worldwide, Esterlam R&D is continually utilizing the latest developments in high tech engineering materials to set new product and performance standards in today's doctor blade industry. For more information, literature, pricing, or any other assistance, please call us at 1-800-445-4017 or e-mail us at info@teamflexo.com. Privacy Policy We want to let you know that to protect your privacy, we will never release your e-mail address to a third party. In all cases, every message we send will be clearly identified as coming to you from All Printing Resources, Inc.. And with every message, you will be given an opportunity to opt out from receiving future messages. Even if you have previously submitted e-mail preferences, you may use the link below to check or add to your profile. This will allow us in the future to better select specials, tech tips, featured products, and training updates products and services targeted to your more specific business needs. Thank you for being a FlexoGuide subscriber and for aiding us in the process of making this a continually improving time and money saving guide for the Flexographic printing industry. © 2005, All Printing Resources, Inc.  |
