Bobst recently hosted an open house at its new Flexo Center of Excellence at Bobst Bielefeld. The event gave attendees the opportunity to experience the entire flexo process from start to finish.

The Competence Center at Bobst Bielefeld has been extended to include a prepress room, showcasing all stages of the flexo process, specifically Extended Color Gamut (ECG) for wide-web CI flexo presses. The Center benefits from an “open-partnership” system, highlighting Bobst’s valued industry partners and ensuring the integration of all the elements of flexo.

“Bobst Bielefeld is now the ultimate Center of Excellence,” says Mark McInulty, managing director Bobst Bielefeld. “It provides an invaluable central facility for testing and continuous development of the ECG process for Bobst and industry suppliers in our open-partnership system. The Center helps our CI flexo printing customers to maximize the advantages derived from the implementation of the ECG process to the fullest.”

The use of ECG is growing steadily. The process uses three additional ink colors – orange, green and violet (OGV) – on top of the conventional colors of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK), enabling a match with 90%+ of the Pantone book. This bests the previously-achieved 60%. For a converter, its adoption means saving time and cost, with no more changes of inks and resulting washing of print decks, no need for a large ink inventory for storing spot inks, no time wasted in ink mixing and a guarantee of color consistency for lengthy run jobs or those that take place in different parts of the world.  

Bobst equipment showcased at the open house included:

• Vision CI: Launched in October 2019, Vision CI is fast and easy to set up and change over. It features automation and exclusive smart technologies that ensure repeatable process consistency with water or solvent-based ink printing, minimum waste and easy manufacturing for all run lengths, on a wide range of substrates.
• Expert CI: A CI flexo press with features designed to help maximize CI flexo process consistency, making it a fit for the requirements of the 7-color ECG printing process. The press delivers stable and controlled printing results and excellent productivity with both solvent and water-based inks. Attendees were able to see the Expert CI print sustainable flexible pouches made from new high barrier mono-material laminates, which were first revealed at K 2019.
• The Digital Inspection Table: A quality control technology that incorporates digital projection for proofing purposes while providing real-time visual representations to match product with digital proofs.
• E-services: Attendees saw the latest offerings from the Bobst Services team, which helps printers optimize productivity and quality while reducing downtime and environmental impact.

Partnerships were also on display, with contributions from Daetwyler, Esko, Glunz & Jensen, Miraclon, X-Rite Pantone, and a host of others. “Every single partner we work with brings so much to the table in terms of innovation and optimizing the flexo process,” says McInulty. “The open house is actually the perfect example of seamless collaboration in action – many companies coming together to combine their expertise and resources to create an optimized experience for our customers. We are delighted to work with all of our partners and to welcome them to the Center of Excellence.”