Smurfit Kappa, which is one of Europe’s largest producers of corrugated packaging, has invested in EFI’s Nozomi inkjet printer.
The company, which is headquartered in Ireland, employs some 46,000 people in approximately 370 production sites and with revenue of €8.6 billion in 2017. As well as having plants in 22 countries in Europe, it is also active in 13 countries in the Americas, where it is the only large-scale pan-regional player in Latin America.
The Nozomi C18000 is a 1.8m wide single-pass inkjet corrugated packaging press capable of producing up to 75 linear metres per minute. It prints in six colours plus white with resolution up to 360×720 dpi. It’s fitted with a fully integrated, programmable top- and bottom-feed system that also handles media separation, lift, transport and alignment at full press speeds. It has a 100 percent in-line image quality inspection system on the press, which actively compensates for inkjet nozzle, alignment and uniformity errors for superior imaging quality. Naturally it uses a Fiery server and can handle variable-data, multi-SKU and targeted versioning production.
The Nozomi press will be installed this month at one of Smurfit Kappa’s plants in Iberia. This particular plant is currently producing six-colour analog printing on single-channel B, C, E and double-channel B/C and C/E board. The Nozomi can run the same grades of single-and double-channel board the company already uses at full press-rated speeds. Smurfit Kappa will use the Nozomi to develop leaner and more-effective processes to deliver ready-to-sell high quality print packaging that can be displayed in retail stores.
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.”
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