Omet Picks Up Tobacco Awards in China

The award to Omet is for a specially equipped version of its Varyflex line, which has been setting new standards in flexo package printing machine around the world.

24/02/07 The leading Italian manufacturer of narrow web presses, Omet, recently added another glistening award to its trophy cabinet.  The annual Chinese ‘Tobacco Awards’ are acknowledged as a mark of prestige for performance in the rapidly growing Asian market, where super-strict demands on print quality and sophisticated special effects are key.
 
The award to Omet is for a specially equipped version of its Varyflex line, which has been setting new standards in flexo package printing machine around the world.  The winning Omet Varyflex line is made up of 10 printing units and two inline die cutting stations.  Key to its success is the ability to interchange flexo print units with rotogravure or screen print units (Omet C.A.S.T.) at any point in the press line depending on specific job requirements.
 
Omet’s success has been achieved by a multitude of features. First, the innovative combination of advanced online functions that offer the printer a single stage solution from the unprinted web right through to the finished product.  This allows high production speeds to be maintained without any loss of print quality.  These capabilities of the Omet Varyflex line mean that classic wide web rotogravure machines and other costly investments like large format offset printing with offline converting, are no longer what packaging producers are looking for.  In today’s market flexibility is everything, and a printing machine must offer a one-pass solution.  In addition, it must be capable of being upgraded or modified as job demand changes, which is a common occurrence.

The Omet Varyflex answers all these questions, and has been successful in China because of its versatility in developing new products with UV flexo, water and solvent based inks, and appropriate drying systems, screen print units, rotogravure print units, hot foil (with a foil saver), cold foil, reverse side and ink jet printing, infinite variations of print formats, post-print tenderiser, inline waste removal, on-the-fly cutting units, which enable various sheet output formats with the same cutting cylinder coupling, and with the same electronic format setting, and a display system for automatic task registering on the run.

One of the most important features on the Omet, and a decisive factor in winning the award, was its capacity to offer adequate support in the prevention of brand counterfeiting, with the inline insertion of certain items that make each packet unique and impossible to copy.  The Varyflex printing line, thanks to its Holo-Foil King unit (which won the FlexoTech International Innovation Award 2005), offers the possibility of step by step embossing of holograms on different surfaces, and can be inserted anywhere in the press line.

A frequently used device by one particular Chinese client is the innovative Omet Hologram Paper unit, which allows inline metallisation of paper and card through water based resins.  The ability to emboss holograms directly during the printing phase has proved a great advantage in the prevention of counterfeit cigarette packets.