Leading Ukrainian printer Ukrpol Printing Company has brought flexographic platemaking in-house by installing a FLEXCEL NX Wide 4260 System from Miraclon.
The platemaking system — supplied by Uniprint, the Miraclon representative in Ukraine — is part of a significant investment in wide-web flexo production at Ukrpol. The FLEXCEL NX System is located in a new dedicated flexo facility at Ukrpol’s plant in Stryi, in the Lviv region of Western Ukraine.
Ukrpol offers packaging customers all four production options: gravure & offset collectively making up 70% of production, flexo 25% and digital 5%. Andriy Boichuk, technical director, says, “There are applications suited to each process, but the conditions are right for flexo to take a bigger share. Shorter run-lengths and tighter delivery deadlines play to its strengths and give it an edge over a process like gravure. It’s also a more sustainable process. So, we are seeing cost- and time- and sustainability-conscious customers shifting packaging to flexo from gravure.” He adds that he expects this trend to continue, and credits FLEXCEL NX Technology with a major contribution to flexo’s transformation into a modern production process for high-quality packaging.
Boichuk concludes, “We conduct our due diligence so looked at all the options on the market, but it was always likely that we would choose Miraclon. We know and trust the heritage of the FLEXCEL NX System and firmly believe that it is the superior technology option that delivers the best on-press efficiency benefits for us. The excellent installation and after-sales service and support is an added bonus.”
