New KODAK FLEXCEL NX Certification raises Nägele’s profile as a supplier of high quality flexographic plates
Thursday, August 30, 2018 —
Nägele Digital Repro GmbH of Kempten, in the far south of Germany at the gateway to the Alps, is one of a worldwide community of KODAK FLEXCEL NX System users to have successfully completed FLEXCEL NX Certification. This certification program, launched by Kodak five years ago, requires companies to demonstrate that the FLEXCEL NX Plates they produce are consistently made to a standard Kodak global specification.
Established in 1975, Nägele has grown over the years to become a leading regional provider of packaging prepress and flexo platemaking services. The portfolio includes both photopolymer and elastomer flexo plates and sleeves, mainly for printing flexible packaging for food products. Nägele has been working with KODAK FLEXCEL NX Technology since 2010 and today employs 13 people. A redundancy strategy is in place for all business critical production systems, in order to guarantee the highest possible levels of production and supply reliability. This is why the company operates two KODAK FLEXCEL NX Wide Systems (4260), whose imagers are equipped with the Hybrid Option and can thus also be used for offset printing plates.
Near monopoly for FLEXCEL NX Plates
FLEXCEL NX Technology plays a central role at Nägele, and this is reflected by the fact that 90% of all photopolymer plates which leave the premises are FLEXCEL NX Plates. “When it comes to plates for high definition flexo printing, FLEXCEL NX continues to set the standard that all other technologies are measured against,” says Managing Director Michael Nägele. “And that’s not all – thanks to the FLEXCEL NX System’s proven capabilities, we’ve even been able to shift several very demanding jobs from gravure to flexo in cooperation with printers.”
Nägele currently supplies FLEXCEL NX Plates, mostly 1.14 or 1.17 mm thick, to about 60 packaging printers throughout southern Germany. The preferred screening methods are AM flexo screens (typically between 105 and 150 lpi), hybrid KODAK MAXTONE Screening and stochastic KODAK STACCATO Screening, depending on the subject and the flexo printer’s requirements. Nägele implements the Kodak screening technologies on a KODAK PRINERGY Workflow System.
According to Production Manager Werner Rost, Nägele’s ongoing success in the market with FLEXCEL NX Plates – especially at the high end of the packaging printing segment – is due not least to technical refinements like the Advanced DIGICAP NX Patterning and Advanced Edge Definition options: “These features help printers achieve the high printable densities they’re aiming for and give them better ink laydown on the substrate as well as a clean reproduction of reverse type and lines.”
Nägele originally achieved FLEXCEL NX Certification in 2015 and has now undergone the program successfully a second time. The certification confirms the manufacturer’s ability to make FLEXCEL NX Plates that meet Kodak’s rigorous criteria for standardization. “We’re a very experienced user of FLEXCEL NX Technology, which means we can offer each customer an exact-fit solution whatever their requirements. It was therefore only logical that we should go for recertification,” Rost explains. “The FLEXCEL NX Certification mark provides our customers – and us – with an assurance that our process meets a high, internationally recognized standard and that all FLEXCEL NX Plates made by us deliver optimal, consistent print quality.”