Rengo Co Ltd, one of the leading Japanese packaging manufacturers, celebrated the start of production with a grand ceremony in August, with the successful commissioning of the first HP PageWide T1190 Press in Asia. This was also the first time that the widest digital printing press in the world had been supplied in a six-colour version.
“We are very satisfied with our press. The cooperation with HP and Koenig & Bauer was flawless. Since the commissioning, the press has been fulfilling all our expectations in terms of performance,” says Junjiro Watanabe, General Manager for technical development at Rengo.
More and more customers are demanding individualised and personalised packaging. This means that producers must accommodate faster throughput times and shorter runs, while at the same time meeting high quality demands. By bringing together the pre-printing and digital print processes, the press places Rengo in a position to combine short, medium and long runs of different jobs on one or more paper reels.
Big player
Rengo was founded in 1909. It employs almost 17,000 people at 100 different companies and 170 production facilities all over the world. Rengo produces a diversity of different packaging for its customers. The current portfolio includes not only high-quality corrugated packaging, but also flexible packaging for the food sector and others such as confectionery, beverages and pharmaceuticals.
Widest digital machine
The six-colour HP PageWide T1190 Press, which was designed within the framework of cooperation between HP and Koenig & Bauer, boasts a web width of 2.8m and a production speed of 305m per min. It uses water-based inks which were developed specifically for liner pre-printing in connection with corrugated packaging and comply with global legal requirements. Furthermore, a broad spectrum of health-related and environmental aspects over the full lifecycle of a printed product – from production through to disposal – are taken into account. The printing machine was supplied with a Pastomat reelstand, Patras A reel handling system, a pre-coating unit and a rewinder with automatic removal.
