Italian market news

Worldwide sales of Italian printing and converting machinery have increased by 18%, according to industry association Acimga. From January to September 2010, exports of Italian printing and converting machinery showed a two-digit growth, driven by the Asian and Central America markets, at more than 80% and 23%, respectively.

In terms of technology, printing machinery marked the best performance, with sales increasing by more than 38%, followed by preprint equipment at 32% - while converting machinery was up by 15%.

Exports are clearly the driving force for Italian manufacturers, and Acimga has been targeting the Russian market especially, with the aim of promoting the spread of Italian technology in that country. A number of partnership projects have been established with the Printing University of Moscow, the most recent being an Italian printing and converting technology centre.

Acimga, the Italian Ministry for Economic Development and the Italian Trade Institute, have granted a €300,000 fund to be employed in the promotion, management and supply of technology in compliance with the Russian university’s educational project involving gravure and flexo printing simulators; paper, converting and packaging machinery and equipment; and educational material.

As well as printing and converting professionals and packaging manufacturers, Russian teachers, trainees and university students will profit from this project, which will begin its activities this spring.

In addition, in co-operation with ICE (the Italian Trade Institute), Acimga will stage the Italian Printing and Converting Award, offering the best Russian students in the technology with the prize of a training trip to Italy.

Open House at new Prati plant

The Prati Open House – to be staged on 9-11 March at the company’s new headquarters in Faenza - will present live demonstrations of the Vegaplus and Vegaplus Booklet label finishing lines, the Saturn and Jupiter slitter rewinding inspection machines, and the ‘revolutionary’ Pharmacheck system.

Prati’s move to its new premises follows a strong period of growth, which saw the company double its year-on-year turnover in 2010. At 3,300m2, the Faenza site is more than four times larger than the previous premises.

The Pharmacheck system for ‘safe labels’ is equipped with patented Prati and Nikka technology that enables 100% label inspection, OCR, edge guide inspection and final label presence check. Aimed at printers specialising in pharmaceutical and highly sensitive labels, it is GMP certified and claimed to offer ‘total security in the finishing process’.

Kissing registration marks goodbye

Uteco, in co-operation with fellow Italian partner Grafikontrol, is in the final stage of testing a new automatic flexo printing pressure control system said to improve on the existing method that uses registration marks.

Expected to be available later this year, included in the company’s PCT (Press Control during Transition), this new Kiss & Go feature will automatically set the printing pressure at job start-up without the need for dedicated printed marks. According to Uteco, the printing results depend on objective parameters rather than the operator’s skill or experience

Kiss & Go is said to be an easy-to-use modular system suitable for presses with any printing repeat range. It offers fully automatic ‘kiss’ point adjustment by direct scanning of the print (at full material width), ‘rather than using an indirect method which does not consider the possible mistakes and/or mishaps occurring during installation, such as mechanical backlash between the plate cylinders and the bearings, misplacement of the plate and anilox cylinders, or plate wear.

The new system can also be used with all types of sleeve without modifications (no chip RFID inclusion, no barcode label, no system to read information). Nor is any particular plate scanning required before inserting the sleeves in the press.