Gateway Packaging Company has selected Asahi Photoproducts and its North American Distributor CTGA for improving platemaking process.

Tennessee-based Gateway Packaging has switched to the AWP flexographic plates with Clean Transfer Technology from Asahi Photoproducts.

The company has also installed the AWP 1116 PD Processor from Asahi to revamp its platemaking process.

Asahi Photoproducts claims that Gateway Packaging has improved its overall equipment efficiency by more than 50% with its AWP Water-Washable Plates.

Gateway has three manufacturing locations that serve the US and Canada by producing packaging for consumer packaged goods manufacturers and industrial packaging for the food, agricultural, chemical and charcoal sectors.

Gateway Packaging prepress manager Tharrin Akers said: “With the variety of flexographic plates and platemaking solutions available in the market, we wanted to do a thorough evaluation to ensure our investment decision was the best possible choice.

“With that in mind, we benchmarked solutions from the leading players, ultimately bringing our selection to the top two, including Asahi Photoproducts.”

Gateway Packaging had run various production jobs using plates created by CTGA as a final test. The company compared efficiency with its existing process, and found the results achieved through the Asahi solutions to be good.

Following the results from the tests, Gateway had invested in a new platemaking department which implemented Asahi’s AWP water-washable plates and added a Kongsberg cutting table, a Glunz & Jensen Concept 401 ECLF Exposure Unit, along with the Asahi Photoproducts AWP 1116 PD Processor.

According to Asahi, its AWP plates are based on the Clean Transfer Technology, which enables a kiss-touch printing pressure setting. The technology uses a low plate surface tension made possible by a specially engineered Asahi polymer chemistry, to prevent liquid flow.

Further, the ink creates a globule, with a large contact angle and high pinning point to result in a cleaner and more homogeneous ink transfer from plate to substrate. Thereby, it helps flexographic printers to address the ever-growing quality demands of their customers.

Image: Tharrin Akers (left) with CTGA technical sales representative David Bell. Photo: courtesy of Asahi Photoproducts.