According to the company, the first commercially available plate of its kind, the Nyloflex FTF digital plate offers flat top dots and a micro-textured surface without the need for additional processing steps or digital surface screening. This provides enhanced simplicity for packaging printers and increases efficiency in the pre-press and plate-making process.

Flint won the award, conferred by the Flexographic Technical Association (FTA), in the pre-press – graphics category. The Technical Innovation Award in different categories was announced in a ceremony in Fort Worth, Texas, the US on 6 March 2016.

According to PJ Fronczkiewicz, product manager at Flint Group Flexographic Products, the biggest advantage of the Nyloflex FTF plate for flexible packaging printers is its inherent, micro-textured surface that provides the perfect conduit for accepting and then transferring ink onto smooth substrates. “This allows printers to achieve substantial increases in solid ink density and nearly flawless, mottle-free ink lay down,” he said.

Printers will also enjoy the elimination of printed trail edge void issues with the new technology employed in the Nyloflex FTF digital plate.

The technology also allows plate makers to process the Nyloflex like other standard digital plates, without the need for additional equipment or consumables, or further investment in high resolution imaging upgrades and software. The company said, with ‘the easy way’, it is no longer necessary for converters to bear the painstaking and costly process of matching and equalising the subtle differences in surface screening between plates produced at multiple locations using different flat top dot systems - significantly reducing the complexity of the pre-press and plate-making process.