Flexible Rotary Dies for the Packaging, Label, Envelope and Commercial Printing Sectors

At Kocher+Beck quality, accuracy and service form the basis of its strategy for producing flexible rotary dies for the packaging, label, envelope and commercial printing sectors.

“In difficult times the market is more conscious of the need for a quality product which maximises up-time,” says Steve Horne, sales director at Kocher+Beck UK. “Customers demand a level of service which ensures the die arrives on time to suit their tight production targets.”

Flexible Dies within the Packaging and Printing Industry

Kocher+Beck manufactures tools for printing and converting as well as supplying magnetic dies. At their two German plants in Pliezhausen, south of Stuttgart, they manufacture products for customers in 58 different countries. There are 220 employees operating a three-shift system producing solid rotary tools, magnetic cylinders, hot-stamping cylinders, flexography cylinders and pressure monitoring equipment. These, along with Kocher + Beck’s range of locally produced flexible dies provide high quality tooling to an increasing range of print sectors.

In recent years the company has become more international and now owns plants in the USA, UK and Russia. In Kansas its 40 plus workforce produce flexible dies mainly for the USA market whilst in Georgia USA the company makes solid rotary tools, print cylinders and magnetic cylinders for worldwide distribution. Both these facilities opened since the turn of the millennium.

Kocher+Beck’s UK facility has been established for nearly 15 years, but because of increased demand they moved production of flexible dies to a new purpose built 1,500 m² factory in Coalville, Leicestershire in 2002.

Here, the factory is equipped with the same ultra-modern machinery and systems for making flexible dies as Kocher+Beck Germany ensuring customers get exactly the same quality of product from any of their manufacturing plants.

Flexible Dies for Labels, Envelopes Business Forms and Cartons

At Coalville, Kocher+Beck also operate a three-shift pattern concentrating on production of flexible dies for labels, envelopes business forms and cartons.

Kocher+Beck UK has chosen to further expand production facilities by introducing yet another CNC 3-axis milling machine to add more flexibility and increase production alongside their many other milling machines.

“As sales director it gives me a real buzz to know we have the ultimate quality CNC machines available to us, says Steve Horne. They are unique to Kocher+Beck and each new generation of CNC machine comes with increased features and benefits that allow us to meet customer demands. Our latest addition, which arrived a month early, in August, went straight into production. It includes fully automated camera recognition to speed up plate loading and increase accuracy. It also has a much larger bed so we can produce more dies per machine cycle.”

“Kocher+Beck recognises the importance of offering same day despatch as packaging producers and printers try harder to respond to stringent turn-round demands. While some suppliers are cutting back, we are increasing our capacity to offer even greater support to the industry.”

According to Mr Horne same day despatch has tripled the level of a year ago, and will continue to increase in 2009. Apparently it’s not unusual to despatch in the middle of the night.

There has been a substantial increase in demand for flexible dies in Europe over recent years. Certainly, reports suggest that die usage in the European label market is 80% flexible and 20% solid tooling, a split that is due mainly to comparative production costs. It is standard practise in the label and envelope industry to have specific magnetic cylinders to fit flexible dies onto, but it isn’t necessarily like this in packaging or commercial print.

Attaching a flexible die to a standard offset print unit can open up an immense opportunity to make savings in time and cost. Short-run labels and light-weight packaging all become accessible to the printer with make-ready on the press coming down to minutes rather than hours according to Mr Horne.

Kocher+Beck offers a very cost-effective system known as IOC (Inline Offset Cutting). Kocher+Beck claim that in the time it takes to exchange a printing blanket the system can be up and running on press. Packaging printers would be able to print and coat inline, as well as convert the product for breaking out by hand later with one pass through the press. This would eliminate the makeready and running time on secondary equipment offering “ ......fantastic benefits in time, cost and convenience.”

Later this year the Coalville factory will further extend its facility for laser hardening of the dies. This gives greater life expectancy especially when cutting into heavier stocks.

Kocher+Beck at Coalville also operate an “open door policy” so customers are always welcome to visit and view the factory and see the precision involved in the manufacturing of flexible dies.