Firstan makes move into digital with Landa S10 press

Firstan, a UK-based independent manufacturer of pharmaceutical, healthcare and specialist food packaging, ordered a Landa S10 Nanographic Printing press for folding cartons on the first day of Drupa 2012, becoming the first carton manufacturer in the UK to do so and also making its first steps into the digital printing market.
 
Indigo founder Benny Landa launched his new digital printing process at Drupa 2012, with three web- and three sheet-fed presses initially offered. Reflex Labels placed an order by signing a letter of intent at Drupa for a 560mm-wide Landa W5 web-fed press, which it said will be the first of many.
 
The Landa S10 (pictured, top) is the market’s first B1 (41in) digital production press for commercial printing and folding cartons. The folding carton model is a straight printing (simplex) model operating at speeds of 6,500-13,000sph on virgin and recycled carton board, metallized stock (200-1,000 micron thickness) and plastics foils.
 
When the machine is installed at Firstan’s next-generation facility in Cambridgeshire – most likely towards the end of 2013 – it will represent the company’s first major move into digital print.
 
Landa Nanographic Printing presses are not intended to replace offset printing, Firstan said, but to complement it. Firstan operates three six-color Mitsubishi presses, with one seven-color model with reverse printing capabilities.

For the foreseeable future, offset printing will continue to be the preferred method for producing run lengths of tens or hundreds of thousands, but the market is demanding shorter and shorter run lengths. Nanographic printing enables print service providers to produce those short to medium run lengths economically at offset speeds, the carton converter said.
 
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