Asahi Photoproducts helps MPH streamline production

Flexo specialists often face similar challenges: customers expect premium print quality, but they also expect shorter lead times, greater flexibility, and consistent delivery. Meeting these expectations requires continuous investment in equipment and technologies.

For UK-based MPH Ltd., one of the country’s longest-standing independent flexographic prepress specialists with more than four decades of experience, AFP-REVO HF has become an important part of that strategy. The next-generation solvent-wash flexographic plate from Asahi Photoproducts helps streamline plate production while maintaining the high print standards customers expect.

MPH has built its reputation on delivering high-quality flexographic plates, rotary screen cylinders, and reprographics services to customers across the UK and Ireland. The range includes independent label printers to multinational packaging groups. In recent years, the company has invested more than £750,000 in modernizing its production environment, including new software and servers, plate developers, an additional CDI imager and LED exposure technology.

Meeting today’s production challenges

For MPH, excellent print quality had never been the challenge. The company successfully supplied premium solvent-wash flexographic plates for many years. The real objective was to improve production efficiency and turnaround times without sacrificing that quality.

“We’ve been supplying premium solvent-processed plates successfully for years, and the print quality was never really the issue,” explains Craig Alderson, director of MPH Ltd. “But we were feeling the squeeze from a few directions at once – energy costs, solvent usage, and the pressure to turn jobs around faster. It made us take a harder look at whether there was a better way of doing things.”

MPH also used thermal plate processing for urgent jobs where speed was the decisive factor. While effective in certain situations, the company wanted a long-term solution that could combine the quality of a premium solvent-wash plate with shorter turnaround times and a more flexible production workflow.

Faster drying, greater production flexibility

After evaluating different options, MPH introduced Asahi’s AFP-REVO HF into its premium product portfolio. The most significant confirmed improvement has been the reduction in drying time. While washout speed has improved by 20% with MPH’s existing workflow, the considerably shorter drying cycle has reduced overall energy costs and processing time.

Compared with conventional solvent plate production, drying time has been reduced from approximately 120 minutes to around 60 minutes. This supports more flexible scheduling and gives MPH greater capacity to respond to urgent customer requirements. In addition, MPH is seeing AFP-REVO HF to support solvent savings of at least 20% based on the faster developing process. The evaluation is still ongoing, as MPH does not exclusively process AFP-REVO HF plates.

The shorter drying cycle also reduces MPH’s dependence on thermal plate production for rush jobs. AFP-REVO HF can now take on more of that fast-turnaround work while still delivering the print performance expected from a solvent-wash flexographic plate.

Results at a glance

• Drying time reduced from approximately 120 to 60 minutes
• Solvent savings of at least 20%, subject to ongoing evaluation
• Plate washout speed improvement
• Greater scheduling flexibility
• Reduced dependence on thermal plate production
• Premium print quality maintained

For Dieter Niederstadt, technical marketing manager at Asahi Photoproducts Europe, MPH’s experience reflects a broader shift in flexographic prepress, where productivity and process flexibility are becoming just as important as print quality.

“Productivity has become one of the most important competitive factors in flexographic prepress,” he says. “Technologies that reduce processing time while maintaining premium print quality help repro houses respond more quickly to changing customer demands. AFP-REVO HF was developed to support exactly this balance: premium solvent-wash plate performance combined with a faster, more productive workflow and the potential to reduce solvent consumption.”