One constant amidst the turmoil and transformation of Kodak in recent years has been the company’s intense focus on R&D for its flexographic printing technologies. To hear Chris Payne tell it, concentrating on flexo has yielded some of Kodak’s biggest strategic dividends in the aftermath of its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2013. 

Once best known for consumer photo products and industrial graphic arts supplies, Kodak now specializes in materials science, digital imaging science, and deposition processes. All three come into play in the products that Payne, Kodak’s general manager and vice president for flexographic packaging solutions, says are helping flexo stake a bigger claim to packaging production in markets around the world.

Kodak still makes lithographic plates and other consumables for the commercial and publication print segments, but it has more eggs than it used to in the flexo basket. The effort appears to be paying off. In the company’s most recent quarterly earnings call, CEO Jeff Clarke said that revenues from Kodak’s primary flexo product, the FLEXCEL NX platemaking system, increased by 17% compared to the prior-year quarter. Year to date, FLEXCEL NX units increased 15% compared to the prior year.