Press manufacturer MPS Systems North America reports an “extremely successful” Flexo Innovation Open House. The event took place on October 26 in Green Bay, WI, USA, and was attended by nearly 150 people. Organized by MPS, the Flexo Innovation Open House also showcased the technology, products and capabilties of MPS partners Green Bay Packaging, EMT International, Kodak, Domino and Rotocontrol.

The Open House event started with an informative morning program at Lambeau Field, home of the storied National Football League franchise Green Bay Packers. After a welcome by MPS and Green Bay Packaging, presentations were given by Kodak, Domino and Rotocontrol, as well as MPS presenting “the next step forward in flexo.” Visitors also learned from tabletop exhibits of over 25 addtional industry partners while enjoying the views and atmosphere offered by the legendary Lambeau Field venue.

After lunch, visitors were transported by touring buses to the Technology and Applications Center of MPS and Green Bay Packaging. At the brand-new facility, MPS demonstrated the ease of operation of the EF multi-substrate press, as well as the EF’s capability to hold tight register while pushing the limits of flexo technology. The jobs were printed with Kodak Flexcel NX plates and utilized a Green Bay Packaging self-adhesive BOPP substrate. The images in the first job demonstrated the ability to hold tonal range and flesh tones across a wide range 175 LPI to 600 lpi. The second print job allowed attendees to understand what is possible to the practically impossible – highlighting the capability to print four colors UV flexo at 1,000 LPI. With the advances of flexo technology and collaboration, anything is possible from high definition images to 0.3 P micro text in perfect register. The third job was printed on unsupported BOPP film, showing a unique “Motion Optics 3D lenticular” job where the EF held a 2.6-micron line with five colors in register at 656 fpm.

Jeff Toepfler, design and pre-press partner from Imageworx, commented: “The exceptional quality and ultra-fine adjustment capabilities of the MPS EF press have allowed us to stretch the already formidable capabilities of flexography into the, before now, unachievable realms of security, lenticular, and exceptionally high line screen ruling print.”

MPS used the event as a means to showcase that it has established a North American organization with local sales, service and manufacturing.The EF multi-substrate press that was demonstrated is a highly automated, user-friendly press that was locally built in Green Bay by manufacturing partner EMT. Also demonstrated during the Open House were the new RobustCut side-load die station of EMT and Rotocontrol’s RSC 440 inspection/slitter rewinder.

Kees Nijenhuis, vice president of MPS North America, said, “Due to all the hard work of our local team and our partnerships with key suppliers, we were able to organize this impressive event. We would like to thank all visitors, partners and table top suppliers for making this Open House an enormous success.”