United Carton Industries Company (UCIC), a leader in Saudi Arabia's packaging industry, is achieving a breakthrough advancement in digital print for corrugated packaging with the installation of an EFI Nozomi C18000 six-colour, single-pass LED inkjet printer from Electronics For Imaging, Inc.
The new printer will bring exciting opportunities for UCIC to enter new market segments, expand its customer base, and create a competitive advantage in the region.
"UCIC's priority is to meet customer expectations, which are constantly increasing due to ever changing market conditions," said UCIC President Mohnish Rikhy. "New technologies such as digital printing with EFI's Nozomi C18000 printer help us meet these demands and stay ahead of the competition."
Founded in 1990, UCIC focuses on high quality corrugated solutions for customised packaging needs - with a capacity of about 400,000 metric tonnes or 1.2 billion boxes on average per year. The Nozomi C18000 printer will enable UCIC to begin transitioning HD flexo work produced in the company's five plants in Saudi Arabia to digital. The migration to digital printing will also increase UCIC's overall production capacity for point of sale displays. The Nozomi is especially beneficial in how it will empower UCIC to better handle shorter runs and changing customer demands.
UCIC decided to purchase the Nozomi for several reasons: "We were highly impressed with the dual feeding feature of the printer and the three different printing modes," said UCIC Supply Chain Vice President Ali Jariwala. "We expect the collaboration between UCIC and EFI to be fruitful."
The Nozomi C18000 offers three modes to optimise print quality and ink consumption: PHOTO mode allows matching of over 90% of PANTONE Colors in six colours with no ink consumption limit, specifically aimed at high-end colour reproduction; POP mode reduces the colour gamut slightly but delivers the best quality while reducing ink consumption; and ECO mode works with a restricted colour range and the lowest possible ink consumption. These print modes allow UCIC to address a wider range of production needs.
The 1.8-metre (71-inch) wide EFI Nozomi C18000 prints up to 75 linear metres (246 linear feet) per minute, printing up to 10,000 890x890-mm (35x35-inch) boards per hour two-up. Its single-pass, piezo inkjet imaging system delivers accurate, high-fidelity colour, including excellent, consistent reproduction on solid areas. The Nozomi is also the leading single-pass corrugated production device in terms of power consumption efficiency after having achieved the Fogra ISO 20690 Standard. UCIC's new printer includes a six-colour configuration of Genuine EFI Inks (CMYK, orange and violet) for superior-quality, expanded-gamut imaging with matte, satin or glossy finishes.
The Nozomi printer is driven by the Fiery NZ-1000 digital front end (DFE), which provides outstanding print and colour quality, with extensive features to make print results truly exceptional. It gives users more ways to automate and manage workflows and flexibly schedule jobs. The Fiery DFE also provides blazing fast performance for cost-effective production on short and long runs, as well as on variable and versioned jobs.
The EFI Nozomi C18000 is part of a complete ecosystem for corrugated manufacturing available from EFI, with leading edge inks, Fiery DFE technology and a complete EFI Corrugated Packaging Suite business and production management workflow.
