Mark Andy focuses on expertise, sustainability and productivity at Labelexpo

ProLed is an integrated curing solution based on LED curing. The system developed by Mark Andy cures speciality inks and coatings on a variety of substrates including thinner filmic materials

PJ Desai, president and CEO, Mark Andy in his media address stressed that Mark Andy was committed to be a “sustainable technology company”. Questioned over the recent acquisition of Presstek by American Industrial Partners, the company which own Mark Andy, Desai evaded the question with no clear answers. However, sharing the future plans of the company, he said, “In US, we have already started selling consumables to flexo print houses. Since, customers were earlier required to procure their consumables from a third party source, we decided to step in and provide it for them.” He also said that the company recently held a technical programme to develop a digital press for label industry and that the official details shall be shared in the next couple of months. “The overall growth for us last year in Europe was around 30%. However, we want to protect our market from both analog and digital competition,” added John Howard, product manager, Mark Andy.

In April this year, Rotaflex, a group company of Mark Andy and manufacturer of slitter rewinder, had announced a strategic alliance with Scantech Automation. Kevin Gourlay, business director of Rotoflex shared that post the acquisition, the Canada-based electric design and engineering company, has helped Rotaflex develop a horizontal tracker, Rotoflex VLI, which made its debut at Labelexpo. The machine is fully designed, highly precise film and packaging rewinder available in widths up to 28.25in. The machine also features the latest URC 2.0 control system with defect detection and automatic sensor calibration. As part of its service offering, Rotoflex has incorporated eDrive, a web handling system which according to the company provides faster acceleration and deceleration with maximum control and run at speeds up to 290m/min.

Questioned over the trend to use narrow web flex for carton printing, Howard said, “There are some success stories but recession has diluted it. Although, we must admit that it never took off as we had expected because carton makers are conservative.” In response to a question on QCDC being used as a retrofit option in several of its existing machine, he said, “The QCDC technology has received a fine response with the new presses than what we had thought. At the same time, we also had thought that retrofits might be bigger market for it. Since, it is not an easy retrofit job; the growth rate has been slower than our expectations.