MACHINERYSix color offset press with UV and IR curing
The Komori Lithrone GL-637 is the offset press every Eastface carton is printed on: six units running to 15,000 sheets an hour, with closed-loop spectral density control reading the color bar and correcting ink balance while the run is happening.
Four units carry process color and two stay free for spot inks. Below is the press drawn as the sheet meets it, the specification the plant states, and what each line of that specification decides about your carton.
The press hall
Three things this press decides, photographed on our own floor.
One sheet, six units and one pass. Every station below is on the specification further down this page, drawn where it sits on the machine.
The GL-637 as configured on our floor. No coating unit: there is none on the press.
01Feeder
Board is lifted a sheet at a time off the pile and squared against the front lays. A sheet that enters out of square prints out of register on every unit after it.
02Units 1 to 4
Cyan, magenta, yellow and black, each on its own unit, on a sheet that has not left the machine. CIP3 and CIP4 ink presetting sets the keys from your file before the first sheet is pulled, and PDC-SG corrects the balance while the run is happening.
03Units 5 and 6
Two units kept free, drawn with gold ducts. A Pantone spot ink prints as the mixed ink it was specified as, and a five or six color job runs in one pass instead of two.
04UV and IR curing
The ink film is cured at the press rather than left to dry in racks. Sheets move to die cutting the same shift, and the film sits harder under lamination, foil, embossing or spot UV.
05Inline inspection
PQA-S V5 looks at every sheet as it prints and flags what falls outside the job’s tolerance. A defect is found by the machine on our floor rather than by somebody on your filling line.
06Delivery
Printed sheets stack squared and dry in the pile, and the lot moves to the Bobst Novacut behind it on the same floor. Nothing is packed onto a truck between printing and die cutting.
The plant runs one press. There is no second line and no third-party printer. Nothing in the carton line is subcontracted.
The same six rows the homepage press room band publishes, with what each line decides for your carton beside it.
Configuration
Six color offset, UV and IR curing
Four units carry process color and two stay free for Pantone spot inks, so a brand color prints as the ink itself instead of a four-color build. A five or six color job runs in one pass, with one registration.
Speed
To 15,000 sheets per hour
A long run takes hours of press time, not days, so a standard lead time holds when a job moves up the schedule. Plates and make ready are a cost per run, so the price per carton falls as the run grows.
Color control
PDC-SG spectral print density, closed loop
The color bar is read on the sheet and ink balance is corrected during the run, so drift is caught in sheets rather than in thousands. It corrects against the shade card you approved, so a reorder matches the first run.
Inline inspection
PQA-S V5
Every sheet is checked as it prints, not sampled at the end. A defect is found on our floor, not on your filling line.
Make ready
KHS-AI with stored job parameters
A repeat returns to the settings the approved run used instead of being dialed in again by hand. The second run of an SKU does not need a second approval cycle.
Prepress data
CIP3 and CIP4 ink presetting
Ink keys are set from your artwork before the first sheet is pulled, not by an operator judging the first sheet. There is less waste at the start of the run, and saleable sheets come sooner.
None of the six is optional equipment or switched on for a particular job. They run on every job.
The specification has one row for six units. The fifth and sixth can carry any of these, each on the same sheet in the same pass.
| On the spare units | How it runs | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| A Pantone spot ink | Mixed to the approved shade card and laid from its own unit, rather than built out of the four process inks. | A brand panel color that holds across a family of SKUs printed months apart. |
| An opaque white | Laid as an underbase on one spare unit, with the process colors printing over it further down the press. | Color that reads true on metallized board or a kraft liner instead of sinking into it. |
| A spot varnish | Run inline from a spare unit, to the same file the plates were made from. | A matt panel with a gloss detail sitting on it, in one pass and without a second machine. |
| An opaque behind a window | A block of opaque ink laid behind the aperture before the panel colors go down. | A window carton where what a shopper sees through the aperture is the product, not the inside of the pack. |
The plant runs one press with six units, and a five or six color job runs on it in one pass.
A four-color press prints cyan, magenta, yellow and black, and every color on the carton is built out of those four. That works for a photograph. For a brand color, a Pantone built out of process inks is an approximation, and it moves with the paper, the coverage and the press.
Six units means the four are still there and two more are free. A brand color runs as the spot ink it was specified as, mixed and matched to the shade card, and it holds across a family of SKUs printed months apart. On a supplement carton that is the panel color a shopper recognizes on the shelf.
A five or six color job on a four-color press is two passes through the machine: the sheet is registered, dried and handled twice, and the second pass can land a fraction off the first. Here it is one pass, with one registration.
The two spare units also run a spot varnish, an opaque white on metallized board or an opaque behind a window, in the same pass. They are on the press whether or not a job uses them.
This press is on the floor of one plant in Piplaj, on the edge of Ahmedabad, with the die cutter and the folder gluer behind it in the same envelope. A sheet is printed, coated, die cut, folded and glued without leaving the building, and a job keeps one specification and one part number from plate to pallet.
Certificates for every mark above are available on request, and a factory tour is the quickest way to check any of it.
The press decides how a carton looks. What decides whether it works on your line is behind it, on the same floor.
Cutting and creasing
The automatic platen die cutter, cutting and creasing to the approved dieline with registration held across the run and stripping and blanking in line. It decides whether the carton erects.
The full specification
Folding and gluing
The folder gluer, pre-breaking every crease and laying a controlled glue bead on straight line, crash lock, four and six corner and sleeve structures. It decides whether the seam holds.
The full specification
The floor
The 90,000 square foot floor the three machines sit on, the route a sheet takes across it in seven stops, and the climate control that keeps the board stable.
Inside the plant
A Komori Lithrone GL-637. Every folding carton this plant ships is printed on it: six units at up to 15,000 sheets per hour, with UV and IR curing at the press, PDC-SG closed-loop spectral density control, PQA-S V5 inline sheet inspection, KHS-AI make ready from stored job parameters, and CIP3 and CIP4 ink presetting arriving from prepress with the plates. There is no second press and no third-party printer.
Yes, on the fifth and sixth units. Four units carry process color and two stay free for spot inks, so a brand color prints as the mixed ink itself, and a five or six color job runs in one pass. The approved shade card is retained against your part number and is the reference the press corrects against on every run that follows.
By measurement rather than by eye. PDC-SG reads the color bar on the sheet and corrects ink balance in a closed loop during the run, so drift is caught in sheets rather than in thousands. The proof and shade card you approved are retained against your part number, so the reorder is corrected against the same reference the first run was, and color is checked in the plant’s own laboratory under controlled viewing conditions before the lot is released.
Offset, on plates. Plates and make ready are a fixed cost per run, so at the volumes this plant runs the price per carton falls as the run grows. Offset is also where spot inks, heavy solids and the finishing on top of them print best. A version change across a family of SKUs is a plate change against one structural family rather than new tooling.
Yes. The clip at the top of this page is the press on our own floor. A factory tour starts with a thirty minute call, so the visit is planned around what is on press that week. Buyers who cannot travel are usually walked through the line on video against their own job.
Last reviewed
Every line of the specification above can be seen on the floor. Book thirty minutes and the tour is planned around your own carton. Landed cost runs 20 to 30 percent below a comparable US supplier quote.
