Before taking delivery of the Zünd G3 digital cutting table, the company was hand-cutting or outsourcing die-cutting work on a flatbed machine. It’s the first UK company to use the Zünd system for the production of polymer plates for the packaging market.
Reproflex 3 has sites in Cramlington near Newcastle upon Tyne, as well as sites in Bristol and Dubai. It specialises in helping clients turn new packaging designs, predominantly flexible, into finished, printed products.
The 50-staff company, which has sales of around £4.5m, paid circa £85,000 for the kit, which was installed three months ago. Managing director Andrew Hewitson looked at rival kit including Esko Kongsberg.
“We went for the G3 because of its connectivity and open platform: it can plug into any high-end workflow such as Kodak and Fujifilm - we don't like being tied to any one specific workflow.
“The Zünd has a fantastically broad cutting spectrum, from carbon fibre for F1 cars to leather and other materials. It is a massively stable platform.”
Hewitson said the new equipment would ensure his company could supply the “finest printing plates money can buy”.
He added: “We used to outsource work, but have brought this in-house. But the real value comes from being able to supply plates to printer clients that are ready to go on the press.
“For a varnish plate, for example, we can cut to within 0.2mm accuracy and punch marks will be virtually 100% accurate. This saves a press operator having to fine tune a plate that's a couple of millimetres out. That fine tuning has now disappeared, which our clients really appreciate.”
As well as printers, clients include design agencies and blue-chip brands such as Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Coca-Cola and Müller. The company supplies more than 20,000sqm of polymer plates each year.
Reproflex 3 saw the Zünd G3 at Drupa and tested the competition before choosing workflow technology was by “far the easier to use”, said added Hewitson.
“As well as the open platform that allows our existing systems to drive it the workflow is seamless. We've found the quality of our polymer plates has improved.
“We have more options for our packaging, with specific sizes now possible to make superior end products. It all just makes sense.”
Reproflex 3 has specialised in flexible platemaking and packaging pre-press for 20 years and runs a variety of Kodak Flexcel and Xeikon Thermoflex platemakers, an HP Indigo digital press, Roland wide-format printers and Epson proofing kit.
Reproflex 3 also has a department in Cramlington for prototyping carton designs, with the G3 also being used to create packaging mock-ups.
The Zünd G3 is an advanced, highly automated cutting table with modular tool and material-handling systems to enable output for a wide range of applications across packaging and beyond.
