Brummen, Netherlands - Automated ink logistics are an essential component  for the modern flexo-printing operation under pressure to remain lean, agile and responsive when faced with an uncertain economy, rising raw materials prices and increased quality demands.

GSE Dispensing, exhibiting during the Flexographic Technical Asosciation InfoFlex 2011 conference (2-3 May) at the Indiana Convention Center, Indianapolis, is the world's leading provider of gravimetric, automated ink dispensing solutions, with a global installed base of 1500. The company's Colorsat range of gravimetric ink dispensing systems offer solutions for all graphics-related flexo-print categories, including narrow-web, flexible packaging, carton and corrugated board.

Typically, volume requirements for the most challenging recipes are dispensed to an accuracy of one gram. Dispensing time takes between two and four minutes, depending on the application. Excess ink from a print run is easily reused, located and retrieved from stock, for easy reuse in future jobs. Some customers have boosted ink yields by as much as 30 percent, thanks to GSE Dispensing's technology. A high-powered software platform, IMS, whose time-saving features include a host of management tools such as stock control, ink consumption analysis, recasting and traceability of ink ingredients by batch, as required in pharmaceutical and food packaging applications.

The Colorsat programme ranges from the Match dispenser, which dispatches in 1 to 5 kg doses for label printing applications, and the Compact, capable of preparing recipes in up to 25 kg doses.

GSE Dispensing's gravimetric ink dispensing systems offer a host of benefits. They remove the risk of printing rejects during production, reduce ink waste, and minimize the chance of press down-time as workflow bottle necks at ink-mixing stage are avoided. Furthermore, procurement costs can be reduced by as much as 25 percent because the need to outsource ink mixing operations to external sources is eliminated.

GSE Dispensing's US sales headquarters are situated in Charlotte, North Carolina. In addition to technical support, the office offers system monitoring online by remote diagnostics.

Mr. José Treviso, vice president sales of GSE Dispensing's USA division, comments: "Our systems, backed up with first rate technological know-how, and a global service network, empower printers to prepare spot colour on demand, to exacting quality and volume requirements. This provides a hygienic, low-maintenance, cost-conscious way of meeting the global brand-owners' demands for quality consistency, enabling identical results from one job to the next. Whatever the volume requirement, from narrow-web to corrugated board, we have a solution that offers a fast return on investment."