Allied Packaging Corporation, one of the leading US suppliers of printed packaging across a variety of sectors, has installed two Mark Andy Evolution flexo presses at its production facility in Phoenix AZ, to boost the output of P/S and filmic labels.

Established in 1983 by its innovative and inspirational President, Darrel Bison, Allied Packaging set out to provide a commitment to customers based on service, quality, delivery, and value. “We still have our first customer and retain over 90% of companies that have ever used our services – we have always thought and acted for the long-term, and it’s clearly paid dividends,” he said.

Today, the company occupies two sites totalling 200,000 sq ft adjacent to Phoenix International Airport and employs more than 150 people in the production of flexible packaging and labels.

Production is fully GMP and SQF compliant for food safety and quality, and the company prides itself on its commitment to investment – both in the latest technology and the knowledge and expertise of its employees by what it calls the Allied University, which Bison believes to be a good way of future-proofing the business.

All of which makes for a testing environment to sell new equipment into, as Mark Andy found out recently. The story began back in 1999 when Allied installed its first label press. This three-color machine was joined in 2005 by a six-color flexo press to add capacity.  Vice President Steven Smith explained: “Outsourcing was acceptable in our early days of label production, but as demand grew from our customers for a single source supply, we knew we needed to bring it in-house to match the quality of our other printed packaging.”

‘Control’ is a byword at Allied, which prides itself on being process-oriented, based on software initially developed by Darrel Bison and now continually developed by five full-time staff.  The company’s entire production is based on pre-set programs run on tablets with dashboards showing live performance data and providing job analysis, with QC checks at every stage. Nothing is left to chance. This provides the ultimate in production scheduling flexibility, with all departments engaged from the incoming material warehouse through all production processes to sales and despatch.

With such a critical eye for detail, choosing the right press manufacturer and then agreeing on the correct specification was not easy. Plant Manager Ron Fowler explained: “We wanted to combine practicality with versatility and decided to go for high-spec from Day One.  We had already decided to install two identical presses because that would offer maximum interchangeability of jobs. In the end, it was Mark Andy’s longstanding reputation for technical excellence and engineering quality that provides long-term durability that won the day, added to their commitment to training and after-sales support.”  

The result was the installation of two Evolution E5 series presses at the company’s Phoenix facility.  With the need to handle both paper and filmic substrates, for P/S and extended text labels and shrink sleeves, the two 17” (430mm) 10-color flexo presses were identically specified to make job switching easy with compatible tooling. Both presses are fitted with 40” (1000mm) unwind with closed-loop control and electronic web guiding, followed by a Vetaphone corona treater and Teknek web cleaner. To handle filmic substrates the presses have chilled impression rolls and are fitted with an overhead rail system for mounting turn bars, cold foil, and lamination capabilities.  Each of the 10 print stations has recirculating hot air drying as well as full UV curing.  

Capable of 750 ft/min (230 m/min) the servo-driven E5 features pre-register, auto-register and has VariPrint capability. Die cutting is by Mark Andy’s award-winning QCDC cassette system that allows die cylinders to be loaded and unloaded through the press side frame with the use of a trolley. It has an exit pacing head for constant tension control and the upper rewind is configured for low tension processing of thin films. Inspection is by a BST Powerscope vison system. For quick and accurate plate mounting, the presses were supplied with a Mark Andy VPM400 Video Plate Mounter.

Wider, faster and with more colors than Allied’s legacy narrow web presses, the new Mark Andy lines offer a more diverse product range and are described by Ron Fowler as ‘better, better, better’! With the capability of moving some jobs from wide web production, the Evolution presses provide a cost-effective alternative on runs lengths of up to 50,000 impressions. 

 Art Director, Tony DeForest also welcomes the new flexibility. “We have the latest cutting-edge technology in our studio to assist our customers from concept to completion and maintain state-of the-art software to ensure that all graphics meet the highest standards required for on-shelf appeal. The wider web width and additional color capacity of the new Mark Andy presses have added a new dimension to what we can achieve.”

Speaking for Mark Andy, Sales Manager Eric Vandenberg commented: “To be chosen by such a major player as Allied Packaging and asked to supply two matching high-spec presses is a testimony to Mark Andy’s reputation for design and manufacturing excellence backed up by a great team of trainers and support engineers. We look forward to developing our partnership with Allied with an ongoing exchange of information that will benefit both companies in what is now a very competitive marketplace.”