Packaging & Print

Packaging & Print solutions

Innovative solutions, cutting-edge technology, and expert support to transform your business.

The Print Industry has been through a significant amount of change over recent years. With an extended period of market revenue decline due to digital substitution, where the industry has had to cope with the impact of electronic media and technological changes. Ebooks, digital magazines, online news outlets and apps have all cut into the traditional revenue sources.

There are also ongoing sustainability challenges with 40% of tree harvesting attributed to paper, high VOC petroleum based inks and paper bleaching all contributing to the pressure. To counter, the industry has had to innovate and introduce new technologies, from changing inks and using recycled paper to the introduction of digital printing processes.

Despite these challenges and their associated changes, the BPiFs’ Priorities for Print 2017-2020 have returned to focussing on productivity, profitability and promotion, after a decade of dealing with external pressures.

This focus on productivity and profitability is where PSI can help. With MAC Valves we have developed a number of industry specific solutions covering both pneumatic and liquid control applications that increase machine uptime, improve quality and consistency and reduce waste.

We understand the unique environment that Printing Industry presents, be it special seals in Kalres™ to deal with MEK or designing highly accurate and repeatable easy to clean solenoid valves for ink handling.

Whether you are doing news print, inkjet, product coding, print and apply, or specialist multicolour UV, we have a range of solutions specifically created for your sector. You can be certain that PSI can help improve your production.

Case Study 1: Spray Dampening Use Case, utilising the MAC Bullet Valve.

The packaging industry continues to face challenges in the economic, political, social and environmental landscape. Innovation and new product development is expected in order to meet sustainability goals, in addition to accommodating new drivers such as the demand for luxury packaging; all balanced against maximising efficiencies in order to compete.

The significant exposure to these external pressures mean that continuous operational performance improvement becomes vitally important and we have found that many packaging manufacturers use the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) metric hierarchy used widely in manufacturing. It is particularly applicable to packaging given that value creation is driven by the efficient conversion of a small number of costly raw materials into a product using expensive machines and a fairly fixed labour cost. OEE is expressed as a percentage, with 100% representing perfect conversion of the inputs into product without any losses. There are three sources of losses, namely availability, performance and quality. OEE is the product of the percentages of these three quantities.

In packaging, these losses come from characteristic areas:

1. Availability losses come from machine downtime (changeovers, maintenance, repair or poor quality air).

2. Performance losses come from operating machinery slower than its rated speed (inexperienced crews or product mix and formulation changes).

3. Quality losses come from scrap — which is the percentage of material produced that is not good for sale (depending on the process, some of this may be recycled or re-introduced into the process as mentioned above).

PSI’s partnerships with core suppliers such as MAC Valves and PHD allow us to offer solutions which support the reduction of losses in all three of these areas.

Our range of high speed, high reliability, highly repeatable and long life components will deliver increased performance, greater machine uptime and improved product quality. We have the very latest technology to keep you ahead of the curve in this highly competitive industry.

If it’s a component part, rather than a problem solving solution you’re looking for, you can browse component parts specifically for the packaging industry from our partner PHD Inc. As the UK sole distributor for PHD, please contact us to order or get advice on the part you require.

industries we help

Solving Challenges in Every Industry

PSI intentionally chooses not to limit ourselves to specific industries, and over the years our customers have come from a vast array of backgrounds. We have provided valuable solutions and services to some very challenging applications from rail toilets and deep-sea bubble curtains to rice sorting and drinks dispensing.