Israeli company, S.Lerner, has switched from solvent-based flexographic printing plates to Asahi’s AWP-DEF flexo plates to ensure it retains a competitive advantage in today’s challenging marketplace.
Shmuel Lerner, owner of S.Lerner, said, ‘We began exploring a new plate solution for two reasons. First, we wanted to eliminate the use of as many noxious chemicals as possible to reduce our environmental footprint and to ensure a safer workplace for our employees. Secondly, we believed that the technology had evolved since we last examined plate options and we wanted to ensure we were taking advantage of those improvements for better quality and increased productivity.’
With the new plates, platemaking time was significantly reduced over the company’s previous process. ‘Obviously,’ he said, ‘this reduces our overall cycle time, but even more importantly, if we have to remake a plate for any reason, we are able to get the press back up and running much faster than before.’
‘We have several new customers as a result of the quality we can now deliver,’ Mr Lerner commented. ‘After we showed these customers our new capabilities, they began to work with us, generating new revenue streams and beginning what we hope will be lasting customer relationships that were not within reach for us before.’
Asahi plates incorporate pinning technology for clean transfer, a flexographic plate technology specifically engineered by Asahi that features low plate surface energy that transfers all remaining ink to the printed substrate. Compared to conventional plates, this reduces press-cleaning stops, creating a significant profitability improvement. These plates deliver very high resolution with fine screen rulings and minimum dots fading out to zero, allowing a broader total colour gamut to be achieved, providing more design flexibility and enhanced graphic quality.
