A new multipronged solution for consumer brands and contract packagers that combines high-quality printing and precision slitting/traverse winding is now available from Web Industries Inc., an outsource manufacturer and precision formatter of flexible materials. The new offering, called WebPrecisionPlus, incorporates brand-enhancing flexographic printing with precision narrow-width slitting and tightly controlled traverse winding, or spooling.

Potential applications exist in the food, pet food, household and personal care sectors, and anywhere else goods are marketed in flexible packaging. A few examples: narrow tear strips for small tissue packages, mid-size drawstrings for trash bags, and wide overwraps for the packaging of beverages and towels.

“WebPrecisionPlus enables consumer brands and contract packagers to create colorful, eye-catching flexible packaging while achieving greater production efficiency,” says Web’s Adrienne Green, director of sales, personal & home Care. “It allows businesses to outsource certain challenging printing, slitting and winding operations entirely to Web. The companies can then focus greater attention on their core product manufacturing and packaging activities. Options include complete printing, slitting and winding; slitting and winding only or roll-to-roll printing of master rolls of material.”  

Web Industries’ wide-web printing capability—92 inches wide for single-color printing, 62 inches wide for eight colors—features 100% vision inspection paired with high-resolution cameras to inspect the full web while printing. The vibrant, high-quality printing helps promote brand preference for packaged goods on retail shelves and online, wherever needs exist to capture customer attention. Web prints on a huge variety of packaging substrates including paper, paperboard, film, foam, nonwovens, laminated materials and substrates with overprint varnishes (OPV).  Brands can select either water-based or solvent-based ink systems according to their preference. 

In addition, Web supports the use of “functional inks,” a growing category. These inks alter their color or appearance when exposed to moisture, sunlight or another agent. This can communicate a promotional message or convey a change in a material’s or garment’s condition, such as a wet diaper.   

WebPrecisionPlus’ slitting and traverse winding operations produce large rolls that easily integrate into packaging lines. Web Industries precision slits materials to widths as narrow as 1 millimeter up to 12 inches wide and then traverse winds them onto spools to extend the customers’ production run time. Accuracy ranges to ±.003 inches for stiffer materials.