Environmental Inks, a member of the Siegwerk group, is making a significant investment in its UV manufacturing capabilites. The company has announced a new facility that will greatly expand the capacity of its UV manufacturing in the Siegwerk CUSA division, located in Des Moines, IA, USA.

The expansion will allow for a dedicated low migration production cell. Globally, Enviromental Inks is a leader in providing low migration technology for a variety of applications. The expansion is designed and being built using Siegwerk Xceed tools for lean, accurate and predictable processes and is scheduled to be operational by mid-2013.

“Environmental Inks has begun its construction of a new UV manufacturing facility, which will include a cell for low migration ink manufacturing,” says Peter Hilpert, president CUSA region. “This will provide a significant capacity expansion in Environmental Inks’ UV manufacturing capabilities for North America. This new facility will be built utilizing tools from Siegwerk’s excellence initiative Xceed for lean accurate and predictable processes.”

Technically, Siegwerk has continued its focus on constantly improving its commercial offering for high speed flexo inks with measurable successes. Also, Siegwerk’s commitment to the industry is exemplified through the expansion of its Global Innovation Network (GIN) into the region.

GIN allows for a global exchange of knowledge while continually improving the quality of Siegwerk products globally. GIN personnel work on long-term projects to carry Siegwerk into the future; for example, GIN laboratories are working to increase renewable content of printing inks in order to provide a more sustainable product to its customers.

Flexible packaging and UV/EB label inks are areas of growth for Siegwerk CUSA. Siegwerk will be expanding its efforts in the flexible packaging market. “Through substantial product development and research as well as capital investments in R&D, manufacturing and its Center for Printing Excellence, Siegwerk is well poised to further grow within this existing key focus market,” Hiserodt says.

Siegwerk sees UV/EB inks and coatings, specifically low migration technology, for the labels market to be a large growth area for moving into the coming years. With the combination of technology from both Siegwerk and Environmental Inks, the labels market is projected to continue to be a key growth driver for both Siegwerk and Environmental Inks.