Central impression (CI) presses are taking share from inline flexo across most flexible packaging segments. Faster, more consistent, lower scrap, better register. The capital cost is high, but the operating economics are winning.
What CI changes for the mounting room
CI presses change three things upstream:
- Sleeve count per job: CI presses typically use multiple sleeves simultaneously. A changeover may involve 6, 8, or 10 sleeves rather than one.
- Synchronization requirements: All sleeves for a CI job need to be ready at the same moment. Staggered retrieval does not work.
- Speed expectations: CI presses run faster and lose more money per minute of downtime, so changeover delays cost more than they did on inline presses.
Why old mounting rooms struggle with CI
A mounting room organized for one-sleeve-at-a-time inline work cannot keep up with multi-sleeve CI workflow. Operators end up making multiple trips, staging sleeves in random locations, and discovering missing sleeves at the press.
The result is that CI press economics get destroyed by upstream chaos. Plants buy expensive new presses and get inline-era throughput out of them.
What CI-ready mounting rooms look like
Job-kit staging is the central concept. Every CI job has a complete kit assembled in advance: all sleeves, all plates, all anilox rollers, on a single cart, ready to roll to the press as a unit. The retrieval and verification work happens during the previous job's run, not at changeover time.
Done well, this collapses the changeover window dramatically and protects the CI investment.
The Flexopodz Team
Purpose-built mounting room solutions for flexographic printing.