Smurfit Kappa has confirmed that it has ordered a Nozomi C18000 single-pass LED inkjet corrugated packaging press from EFI. The new press is scheduled to be installed in May at one of Smurfit Kappa’s plants in Iberia – a facility that currently manufactures a wide range of boxes and trays, including packaging requiring higher-quality, full-colour imaging.
“This digital printing partnership with EFI reflects Smurfit Kappa’s serious commitment to providing the best packaging solutions available,” said Ignacio Sevillano, CEO Smurfit Kappa Spain, Portugal and Morocco. “Our ability to achieve high-quality print production in larger volumes with the Nozomi press will mean our customers can establish better supply chain strategies and be more creative by producing multiple designs – all of which can help our customers sell more products and reduce their time to market, while employing a leaner, more sustainable packaging program.”
The Nozomi press, with its high-end greyscale imaging capabilities and fast running speeds up to 75 linear meters per minute (246 linear feet), offers the critical capabilities Smurfit Kappa can use to give its customers short-run, medium-run and complex versioned jobs that are too costly to produce using analog post-print flexo or litho lam processes. This Nozomi C18000 would be the fourth digital printing machine operating at Smurfit Kappa plants in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
“Smurfit Kappa is already one of the top innovators in packaging; with the Nozomi press, the company can set a strong example on how the corrugated industry can benefit from industrial inkjet printing,” said José Luis Ramón Moreno, vice president and general manager, EFI Industrial Printing. “Several Smurfit Kappa plants around the globe use EFI’s corrugated production workflow software products and we are excited to extend our longstanding partnership with this global packaging leader by providing the distinct advantages our one-of-a-kind, ultra-high-speed single-pass LED production platform.”
