A delegation consisting of 13 representatives from the German Folding Carton Association (FFI) visited four partner companies that operate in the digital printing and processing fields during a six-day fact-finding mission to Israel late last year. Obtaining an up-to-the-minute insight into the progress made in the development of these alternative production technologies for carton manufacturing, the delegation visited HP Indigo, LANDA Digital Printing, Highcon and Scodix. They then saw live demonstrations of the new digital manufacturing technologies at two Israeli carton manufacturers.
At the beginning of the fact-finding mission, the FFI delegation visited Highcon Systems Ltd. in Yavne, which already has a number of German board converters among its customers. In the presentations and live demonstrations of the Highcon EUCLID III and Highcon BEAM, the representatives of the company, headed by Aviv Ratzman, CEO & co-founder, and Miki Zimmer, COO & co-founder, gave the FFI members to in-depth insight into the technical aspects of laser cutting and creasing and explained in detail the expertise they had obtained in the development of optimum creasing equipment.
At the Israeli based folding carton manufacturer Copy Center in Haifa, Nigel Tracey, Scodix Head of Packaging and Assaf Eden, Scodix E106 Project Manager, presented the Scodix E106 size B1 digital printing processing system. The machine, which is designed to run at a speed of up to 4,000 sheets/hour, has been developed specially for the folding carton market and provides a variety of printing conversion features (sense, foil and spot etc.) for short to medium-sized runs.
The second day of the trip included a visit to HP Indigo in Kiryat Gat and included numerous presentations and discussions with Lilach Aviad, HP Indigo Global Strategic Accounts Folding Carton, and Ariel Sternfine, Product Marketing Manager HP Indigo 30000, about trends, brands and applications as well as an intensive look at the HP Indigo 30000 for the folding carton industry.
The programme on the final working day of the fact-finding mission was extremely varied and compact, involving a visit to Landa Digital Printing and the Landa Group in Rehovot. A start was made with an informative explanation of the technical digital printing concept (nanography) in the research & development laboratory at Landa Digital Printing, followed by machine demonstrations of the S10 and W10 models in the demo center.
All the participants in the FFI fact-finding mission agreed that the openness and transparency displayed by the four partner companies in providing a look ‘behind the scenes’ (including the machines) combined with in-depth information enabled the members of the FFI to obtain a deeper understanding of digital solutions for the carton sector.
