With the increasing demand for flexible packaging, the need for lower-cost, higher-productivity digital solutions has been driving the development of many current label and packaging production solutions including those from HP Indigo, Xeikon, Fujifilm, Mark Andy, and others using a variety of liquid and dry toners or UV inks. However, these solutions can’t address the requirements of the medium to longer runs required in the larger-volume products currently supported by flexography. The UTECO Sapphire EVO press was formally introduced in April 2018, as previously covered, to address that gap.To date there are three Sapphire EVO presses in place around the globe: Nuova Erreplast in Italy, Kinyosha in Japan, and one at the Kodak facility in Dayton, Ohio.

To further address the needs of flexible packaging, Uteco and Kodak have just announced that they sold the first UTECO Sapphire EVO W product production inkjet press designed for flexible packaging. The “W” refers to “Wide” since this press has a 1250 mm (49 in.) width in comparison to the standard Sapphire EVO which has a 620 mm (24 in.) width. The other big difference is that the EVO W is the first press to be powered by the Kodak ULTRASTREAM technology. For a comparison of the two different Kodak imaging technologies you can refer to an in-depth look in this previously written article.

As a result, in addition to the difference in width, the EVO W supports a higher resolution of 600 x 1800 dpi at up to 150 mpm (492 fpm). In the rapidly growing area of shorter-run flexible packaging, alongside the existing Sapphire EVO, these two presses create a compelling reason to move to digital from flexography, especially in comparison to existing digital solutions which only have production speeds ranging from about 50 mpm (150 fpm) to 75 mpm (240 fpm), which is acceptable for short runs but falls short on higher volumes. Taking into account the faster speed plus the increased width of the W, overall productivity can be 4X over existing digital solutions.