Zircon gains time, and brings green quotient with Dupont CyrelFast 2000TD flexo plate processor

The 12-year-old label specialist has four units in two locations – Dehradun and Chennai. It has an in-house pre-press since 2009. The pre-press infrastructure included the Esko workflow system, the Esko CDI 4835 imager, a Flint solvent imager and the DuPont Cyrel DigiFlow 2000 ECLF exposure, light finisher and post-exposure unit.

“We cater to the label requirements of large brands in the FMCG and food and beverages segments. These companies are very particular about maintaining the confidentiality of their jobs, particularly when there’s a new product to be launched in the market. Having flexo pre-press in-house helps us and our clients maintain a high level of confidentiality,” said Sanjeev Sondhi, managing director at Zircon.

However, there were times when during the launch of a product, the brands would be present while the jobs were on the press. “A small change, it could be anything, from colour to design to text errors, the job would have to be stopped.  It would mean, firing new plates, exposing and processing it for the job,” said Sondhi.

Each time Zircon spent 4-5 hours to get the plates done with the present setup, as a result, we had to put the current job on hold, and bring it back after the plates are produced or the replaced job on the press is complete. “We used to waste 25-30 hours,” said Sondhi. “Thanks to Dupont’s new Cyrel Fast 2000 TD technology, we have a new plate in 45minutes, and maintain our schedule of jobs.”

He added, “Since the Dupont flexo plate processor is solvent-free, it is environmentally friendly with no solvents to handle, store or recycle, and no drying time is required.”

Zircon has 14 flexo lines at the four units, and on “any given time, we are producing 100-120 jobs a day. So even, a five-metre waste is big for us.” concluded Sondhi.