BOBST today announced the launch of the BOBST NOVA RS 5003 gravure press engineered to deliver superior performance with water- or solvent-based ink printing on a wide variety of flexible packaging materials including the new eco-friendly substrates.

The press launch took place at Bobst (Changzhou) Co. Ltd., BOBST facility in the Jiangsu province of China, dedicated to the production of web-fed equipment for the flexible packaging industry. The event was attended by brand owners, converting companies, industry suppliers and members of the trade press who travelled to Changzhou from countries in South East Asia and Pacific to discover the new BOBST gravure press.

“The region is buzzing with interest since news of the launch of the NOVA RS 5003 that takes over from the very successful RS 5002 press with new powerful features and automation”, explained Sebastien Geffrault, Zone Business Director SEAP, Business Unit Web-fed at BOBST. “Our gravure solutions bring together all the advantages of BOBST leading-edge technology with the flexibility of configuring them with market-related technical solutions. For example the choice of inking systems that can handle a broad variety of ink types, including the market-specific varieties that are used in the Indian and Asian flexible packaging industry, always with the highest graphic quality”.

True to the event theme of “Advancing productivity and sustainability in gravure printing” the press presentation and demonstration highlighted the advanced features and automation aimed at maximizing uptime, reducing waste and make the best of advanced connectivity features for full production and quality control.

The NOVA RS 5003 features best-in-class automation including the possibility to add TAPS, a fully automatic pre-register setting at the touch of a button.

Job make-ready and changeovers are very fast: the new doctor blade system is easy and quick to set, and the Twin Trolley solution, unique to BOBST, enables to change the printing cylinder without changing the ink, minimizing job changeovers and color matching time.

The twin flow dryers are also an exclusive technology. The highly efficient ventilation system minimizes residual solvent on substrate, maximizes energy savings and ensures low noise level in the pressroom. It is also the perfect platform for water-based inks, where drying capacity is one of the main concerns.

“The NOVA RS 5003’s advanced press design delivers many advantages now and is ready to take on board the market evolving requirements, including the possibility to further expand the automation architecture of the press,” explained Davide Garavaglia, Head of Product Line Gravure at BOBST. “Looking ahead at market trends and focus on sustainability, the press is fully compatible with water-based ink printing, and can handle very efficiently the widest range of materials, including the new eco-friendly substrates”.

Two other very important aspects derived from the press advanced design are the ease of use and the connectivity features.

All machine parts are easily accessible for web threading, cleaning, and maintenance operations.

The new BOBST SPHERE Human Machine Interface with intuitive and easy displays has advanced features that enable full control of production quality and efficiency, including creation of a digital twin of produced reels, downtime tracking and waste management, and maintenance programming

The NOVA RS 5003 gravure press can be seen at Bobst Changzhou Competence Center, a facility adjoining the production plant. The Competence Center is dedicated to web-fed printing and converting technologies for flexible materials and exemplifies BOBST commitment to be at the forefront of technological research and innovation as machine manufacturer as well as process innovator.