Soma webinar focuses on workflow discipline

A Soma India webinar on 17 November 2025 elucidated on making short runs profitable in flexographic printing outlined the operational areas where converters must tighten control as run lengths continue to shrink. The session was led by Suhas Kulkarni, country head, Soma India, who began by pointing to the tooling requirements that sit at the centre of the challenge.

“Flexography is traditional tooling,” Kulkarni said, explaining that each colour variation demands a different repro and a different plate, while label printing adds the cost of dies. In wide-web operations, sleeves of multiple repeat lengths are required. “There is a consideration of how this investment or additional tooling will be compensated in the overall run length of the job to make it profitable,” he noted.

Changeovers, he believes,  are another major pain point. When plates, sleeves and inks are replaced, colour matching becomes critical once the first print sample is taken. “You want to make sure that the colour that you’ve printed matches what the customer is demanding,” Kulkarni said. He stressed the importance of achieving first-time-right printing.

To address these pressures, the webinar focused heavily on standardisation. Kulkarni urged converters to work closely with pre-press suppliers and establish a smart pre-press workflow, because “by the time the plate is made, there is no other option but to print it.” 

One recommendation was a fixed colour palette strategy. “This helps you by reducing your downtime because you’re not changing inks,” Kulkarni explained. While extended colour options such as ECG are gaining attention, he cautioned that implementation depends on the groundwork being in place. 

Flexography, he reminded attendees, is not an isolated process. “The ecosystem involves a very large circle,” he said, citing ink suppliers, pre-press partners and internal production teams as critical contributors to short-run success.

The webinar also touched upon choosing the right press width for the target market — labels, shrink sleeves or mainstream flexible packaging — to ensure productivity without over-investment. Kulkarni advised converters to “balance your capex with profitability”.

The session also previewed Soma’s upcoming Flex Show Summit in Jaipur on 26–27 November 2025, which will feature case studies from converters implementing the strategies discussed. Kulkarni said the event would continue this focus on practical steps to “make production profitable, especially when you’re going for short runs.”

He closed the webinar by reinforcing that profitable short-run flexo will come from alignment of tools, teams and expectations. “Successful flexographic printers are the ones who have successful alignment with the ecosystem,” he said.