Tuebingen/Amsterdam – GMG, the world's leading color management solutions provider, and Mimaki Europe, a leading manufacturer of wide-format inkjet printers and cutting machines for the sign/graphics, textile/apparel and industrial markets are pleased to announce a new strategic partnership providing a highly innovative solution for high value packaging applications. The common solution, comprising of the Mimaki UJF-605 series of UV inkjet printers, GMG ColorServer 4.6 color management software for fully automatic color conversions and GMG SmartProfiler for printer calibration and profiling, allows for the first time to digitally produce consistent and accurate color results on virtually any material.

GMG ColorServer in combination with Mimaki UJF-605 printers is certainly a valuable solution for all businesses- print houses, prepress companies, agencies and brand owners-engaged in flexible packaging, compound board packages or tin printing. The core applications of this unrivaled solution are:

    •    color-accurate digital proofing on original substrates used for production - with white ink and varnish support,
    •    digital production of color-accurate packaging mock-ups/prototypes – often requested in the packaging design phase or for customer acceptance tests,
    •    short runs/personalization - replacing time consuming and expensive prints on the production press.
    
"There is no doubt that this new solution will set important quality standards in these environments. No competitor has yet to digitally print consistent colors on nearly any material,"  says Paul Willems, CEO of GMG GmbH & Co. KG. "We are excited about the partnership with Mimaki, bringing together both companies' core competencies in printer and software development."

"We are excited that now GMG & Mimaki can jointly offer the best possible and most effective technological proofing solution for the packaging and label markets," says Sakae Sagane, managing director of Mimaki Europe B.V.

Enormous time and cost savings can be achieved by replacing press time and costs for printing plates and gravure cylinders with digital production. The Mimaki UJF-605 UV inkjet printers have been optimized for digital proofing in the offset, gravure and flexo packaging industry. In combination with GMG color management technology, perfect color match, optimum spot color reproduction, highest repeatability and optimum print quality up to a resolution of 1200dpi can be achieved on any substrate such as shrink or metallic foils, tin and compound boards. Nearly any printing stock can be used with the GMG-Mimaki solution. Due to the extremely resistant, high-quality inks of the Mimaki printer, it is possible to apply the same finishing process as on the final product. Except a real press proof, no other solution on the market delivers this.

The German-based leading packaging specialist HUBER Packaging Group is the first company in Europe to use this new solution for digital proofing on tinplate and the production of color-accurate mock-ups. HUBER Packaging Group produces tinplate packaging for food stuff, coatings, chemical products as well as five-litre party kegs and elegant fancy boxes for renowned brand manufacturers. "We are now able to produce digital proofs and mock-ups from the original substrate that is later to be used for production. Even the deformability of the tinplate is no problem. This is a far better aid to decision-making and enables the customer to give an approval a lot sooner than before", says Thomas Stock, head of the Print Service Centre at HUBER. "As an industry leader, we have a commitment to our customers to use the best possible and most effective technological solutions available on the market. There is no doubt that the GMG-Mimaki system is currently the only solution we know to fulfill these requirements."