Flexo Forges Bond

Published: August 01, 2007, By Edited by Claudia Hine, Managing Editor

Flexographic Printing

Invisible Card Co. (ICC) has a flexible approach to creating solutions for its clients that includes more than just manufacturing to order. Through consultation and communication, ICC seeks to understand its customers’ requirements and build an ongoing relationship. These are the same qualities the company looks for in a supplier when it’s time to invest in new equipment.

ICC was looking to partner with a manufacturer to specify a press that could grow as the company grows. Explains Oscar Smuts, logistics/projects manager, “We invited four flexo press manufacturers to submit quotations, and Edale was the only one that listened to us and matched our specification exactly.”

Consequently, ICC purchased an Edale Beta modular flexographic press. The 330-mm press is equipped with a 1.25-m unwind and six print stations. It features combination infrared and ultraviolet drying, laminating, cold foiling, turnbar, and a delivery table.

The Beta replaces a sheet-fed offset machine and will be ICC’s first flexographic press. It will run alongside Heidelberg die-cutting equipment as well as sheet-fed digital HP Indigo printers, among others.

Cold Foiling Opens Opportunities
ICC specializes in secure prepaid scratch cards for the telephony industry, scratch-off tickets and vouchers for the gaming industry, promotional games and cards for the retail market, and related services. The family-run company—a 2003 startup with 55 permanent employees—serves mainly overseas customers but is looking to attack the South African label market with the Beta, specifically the wine label market of the Western Cape, thus the specification of cold foiling.

Adds Smuts, “Another reason we chose the Beta was after we analyzed all the equipment in terms of servicing both our basic needs and allowing us to diversify, we found the Beta was more economical, as we could take on extra business without needing to change overheads. It was also competitively priced.”

CONVERTER INFO:
Invisible Card Co. (Pty) Ltd.
Box 2698
Somerset West, South Africa 7129
+27 (0) 21 851 1250; invisiblecardco.com.com

SUPPLIER INFO:
Edale Ltd.—PFFC-ASAP 306. edale.co.uk
Heidelberg—PFFC-ASAP 307. us.heidelberg.com
Hewlett Packard/Digital Printing Solutions—PFFC-ASAP 308. hp.com