There’s a laundry list of potential operational, performance, and print-quality issues you can experience with flexible packaging:
Preventing these issues really comes down to your flexible packaging supplier’s experience.
They should be able to diagnose the root cause, remedy it, and help you prevent the same problem from reoccurring in the future. Easy enough to say; harder to do.
Recently, a brand approached us, saying they were experiencing quality issues when they ran our packaging material on their equipment.
So we dug deeper, asking questions like:
This uncovered that they were unable to adequately form seals on their equipment, so their finished flow-wrap packages were leaking.
We flew one of our field tech engineers to their plant to investigate the problem further. Once on-site, they observed the facility’s entire packaging line operations, paying special attention to the interaction of the material and equipment.
After a few diagnostic tests, our field tech engineer identified the root cause: The seal jaws were slightly out of alignment. Because the customer had backup seal jaws on-hand, our engineer was able to work with the customer’s maintenance group to install new seal jaws. This resolved the problem, and from that point on, the packaging material ran smoothly on the form/fill/seal line.
Even though the underlying issue was an equipment maintenance issue—not an issue with the quality of the flexible packaging material—we took responsibility for remedying it and preventing future problems. All of this occurred at no cost to the customer. It’s just a standard part of our inherent technical support and service.
It’s the same general process for all current and prospective customers: We seek to understand the quality issue you’re observing, perform diagnostic tests to identify the root cause, and do whatever it takes to fix it.
Questions to ask potential flexible packaging suppliers:
Your package’s graphics are the face of your brand in the marketplace. Rightfully so, brands have very particular expectations about the quality and consistency of colors, text, and imagery. The final package needs to reflect your design intent.
And flexible packaging suppliers with a full prepress department supporting their press rooms are best equipped to meet these expectations.
Flexible packaging printing presses are complex machines with strict tolerances. The prepress department should review your design to identify and address any potential issues, such as type that’s below tolerance, where spot colors will be required, specialized screening, etc. This pre-production stage should be collaborative, establishing agreed-upon expectations.
A flexible packaging supplier is also responsible for transforming your color preferences into numerical, measurable targets. This allows you to quantify printing quality.
Some converters even make plates in-house. This eliminates the middleman, giving you quicker turnarounds and even greater control over your finished graphics. If any package doesn’t meet your expectations, a good flexible packaging supplier should take single-source responsibility for addressing it.
Questions to ask potential flexible packaging suppliers:
With six decades of experience manufacturing flexible packaging, we’ve encountered almost every packaging challenge. Let’s work together on yours — reach out today to start the conversation.