Uflex Limited shook hands with Ms. Think Lab, Japan and set up a Fully Automatic Robotic Laser Engraving Line for manufacturing rotogravure cylinders at the Noida facility in India. The robotic laser engraving line has reduced the cumbersome process of manufacturing rotogravure printing cylinders to a single operator job. This automation however poses absolutely no threat to the current manpower as there exists a separate well contoured market segment for conventional electro-mechanically engraved, embossed, coated rotogravure printing cylinders much like the laser robotic plant engraved rotogravure cylinders. While over 200 cylinders are manufactured per day using the conventional process at Uflex, through the robotic laser engraving line spread in approximately 1/10th of the entire cylinder manufacturing shop floor area at Noida, a single operator can produce additional 60 cylinders per day. Major advantages associated with the rotogravure cylinders manufactured on the fully automatic robotic laser engraving line are:• Consistency in printing for flexible packaging; • More mileage from the cylinder; • Less ink consumption during printing operation as compared to conventional electromechanical engraving; • Production volumes have gone up from the erstwhile 180 cylinders per day to produce 240-250 cylinders; • The cylinders produced are dynamically balanced and can run up to a speed of 500m/minute; • High Definition image re-production capability of 6,400 DPI which is not attainable through the conventional electro-mechanical engraving process; • Very less production space is required in comparison to the conventional process with similar production capacity; • Requires less power, hence the running costs are low. Owing to the whole gamut of benefits that they bring, the rotogravure cylinders manufactured on the robotic laser engraving line are in great demand by converters and packaging companies catering to niche multi-national brands.
