Tuebingen/Birmingham – GMG, the world's leading color management solutions provider, and Mimaki, 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 worldwide strategic partnership providing highly innovative solutions for high value packaging applications. The common solutions, comprising the inkjet printer range from Mimaki, GMG ColorServer 4.6.2 color management software for fully automatic color conversions and GMG SmartProfiler for printer calibration and profiling, allows to digitally produce consistent and accurate color results on virtually any material.

GMG ColorServer in combination with the Mimaki printers is a valuable solution for all kinds of businesses engaged in flexible packaging, compound board packages or tin printing, e.g. print houses, prepress companies, agencies and brand owners. The core applications of this 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.

"We are very pleased that we could expand our existing partnership with Mimaki to a worldwide collaboration. Only a few months ago we started our mutual partnership with the solution GMG ColorServer/SmartProfiler and Mimaki inkjet printer UJF-605 UV. Meanwhile we can offer the GMG color management for all Mimaki inkjet printers, worldwide to the benefit of our customers.  That's a tremendous success within a very short time frame", says Paul Willems, CEO of GMG GmbH & Co. KG.

"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 Akira Ikeda, President of Mimaki Engineering Co., Ltd.

Enormous time and cost savings can be achieved by replacing press time and costs for printing plates and gravure cylinders by digital production. The Mimaki 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.

The German-based packaging company Wipak, specialized in food and medical packaging use the GMG/Mimaki solution for digital proofing on original material for flexible packaging and the production of color-accurate mock-ups. "Producing contract proofs and color-accurate mock-ups on original stock is very important for us as it means a lot of time saving in the sign off process with the print buyer. Customers appreciate our service to see at a very early stage a simulation of the final print result on transparent film", says Thomas Kinzer, production manager at Wipak.

The GMG/Mimaki solution can be seen at IPEX on the Mimaki stand hall 12, C120.