Undoubtedly, the capabilities of South Africa’s prepress and repro community have moved with the times, particularly when it comes to investing in the latest equipment and software designed to meet today’s growing demand for complex jobs, shorter print runs, faster turnaround times and absolute accuracy and quality.
Gilsonn Investments expands into KZN
Sharing a strong association with Gravure Cylinders in Gauteng, the shareholders of Gilsonn Investments (Craig Gilmour and Simon Sonn) recently decided to expand their repro presence into KwaZulu-Natal – a decision that led them to acquire Repropack last November.
Repropack has been in existence for more than two decades, operating from premises in Pinetown, Durban. The company offers a DTP service, print-ready repro and stepped up (engraving-ready) files for one of KZN’s largest packaging converters. Additionally, Repropack offers a design service to a number of multinationals in the FMCG sector.
Heading up both operations is MD, Simon Sonn. Although he’s based at Gravure Cylinders in Benoni, once a fortnight he spends a couple of days at Repropack in Pinetown. In the meantime, day-to-day operations at Repropack are handled by repro manager, Essa (Baboo) Hoosen.
According to Simon, the business is equipped with the latest versions of leading-edge repro software from Esko and Adobe. ‘However,’ he insists, ‘the true value of Repropack lies in the high level of expertise of our personnel. In addition, their strong service-orientated culture will stand the business in good stead as we take it forward to even greater heights.’
Kemtek sweeps the board
Just seven months after the official signing of its partnership agreement with Fujifilm SA, Kemtek swept the board at Fujifilm’s Distributor Awards held in June in Germany – taking Best Performance in Sales for ZAC Processor, ZAC Plate, PRO-T3 and XR-1200F, as well as the overall title, Best Performing Distributor of the Year.
‘We’re delighted to be recognised in this way,’ comments Kemtek MD, Gavin van Rensburg, who was in Germany for the event. ‘Our team’s performance has been exceptional and our sales statistics prove that South Africa’s printing professionals recognise the reliability and durability of Fujifilm’s advanced plates and processing systems.’
Coupled with Kemtek’s reputation for delivering trustworthy advice and assistance, Gavin’s confident that his dynamic and dedicated technical sales team will continue to grow the Fujifilm SA brand throughout southern Africa and beyond.
Direct engravable plate for pad printing
With its nyloprint plate programme, Flint Group offers an extensive range of high-performance products for letterpress, dry offset, pad printing and security print applications. Now, the portfolio is expanded with the new direct engravable pad printing plate, nyloprint DLE 30 S. This plate has been designed for laser direct engraving making any further plate processing steps (wash out and drying) obsolete. Generating the relief in only one step makes plate processing much more efficient and improves process stability when producing pad printing plates.
nyloprint DLE 30 S plates are suitable with all standard laser systems: with CO2, fibre and diode laser systems, but also with standard ablation laser systems for flexo and letterpress plates. This new gravure plate for high quality pad printing is particularly well suited for industrial and promotional products.
Nordic leader invests in Vianord prepress technology
Marvaco, Scandinavia’s largest supplier of flexo plates to package printers, has installed a Vianord EVO automated plate processing system. The EVO 5 BP-I line, featuring a washer, dryer, post exposure and plate stacker, was chosen for its high efficiency and output, according to MD, Kai Lankinen.
Originally founded in 1984 in Finland and as far back as 1914 in Sweden, Marvaco now employs 90 people and has an annual sales turnover of around €10.5-million. The company delivers high-quality prepress and flexo printing plates to printers and brand owners across the whole packaging sector. Services also include brand management, 3D modelling, DAM and packaging design production. Backing-up Kai Lankinen’s claim for quality, Marvaco is internationally acknowledged as the most awarded packaging prepress company in Scandinavia.
In addition to the new Vianord EVO Easy-to-Plate line, Marvaco has eight Esko CDIs, producing HD and Full HD flexo plates. It handles around 25 000 pieces of artwork each year and manufactures more than 22 000m2 of polymer plates and sleeves for the flexible packaging, corrugated and label markets, in addition to supplying repro to dry-offset and digital printers.
Evaluating the new EVO 5, production director Marko Valkamo says: ‘We really appreciate the integrated workflow and improved operator environment that the fully cased-in construction provides. As a complete production line it was a major investment for us, but we’ve been delighted with its performance and the professional support from the manufacturer.
