Print Innovation Asia Issue 6 2022
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Kirk Group rides pack reshoring wave “We approach a new packaging technology today in exactly the same way we have for 50 years. If it looks useful, we investigate it, and if it stands up to scrutiny, we integrate it, validate it, and take it to the market.” John Kapiniaris, General Manager of Australia’s Kirk Group, the largest provider of graphic arts services and image carriers in Australia and New Zealand, is providing context for the group’s latest technology acquisition — KODAK FLEXCEL NX Central Software, the new automated plate layout technology from Miraclon, which he says has “transformed our plate utilization efficiency.” FLEXCEL NX Central Software enables the integration of multiple advanced plate surface patterning features - including those delivered within FLEXCEL NX Print Suite for PureFlexo™ Printing - into one automated plate layout, and increases consistency and reduces errors by minimizing operator touchpoints. It also improves productivity by enabling multiple users on the network to
remotely view or manage the plate layout process. Early adoption of technology is a Kirk trademark — “Innovation is in our DNA,” says John — and a major reason for its success over the 50 years since Graeme Kirk founded the business in 1972, initially to provide artwork services and gravure cylinder engraving. The company moved into flexo in the 1980s and 1990s and today has four manufacturing sites in Australia and New Zealand — Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Auckland — and, since 2020, a presence in Mumbai, India. Fast movers “We aim to always be first to market,” says John, before explaining how rolling out a new technology involves working closely with “a trusted
network of suppliers and customers to really field test a solution.” The company’s adoption of FLEXCEL NX Technology in 2010 is a good example of this combination of technological curiosity and close collaboration, as John recalls. “It was one of our trusted customers that alerted Graeme to a groundbreaking new technology. He immediately investigated, liked what he saw and bought a FLEXCEL NX System. Following the new technology install, we worked with a major brand and our trusted print partner to qualify the technology across their product range, evaluating it on multiple SKUs with really complex designs — multiple colors, fine text, and so on. At the end of the qualification process we knew, and so did the brand owner and printer, that we had something genuinely new and exciting to take to the market.” Reshoring boosts local demand FLEXCEL NX Central Software is Kirk’s third recent investment in Miraclon technology, following the November installation of a KODAK FLEXCEL NX Ultra Solution and investing in the FLEXCEL NX Print Suite for Flexible Packaging to access PureFlexo™ Printing Technology before that. They are all in line with the company’s policy of systems- and technology-driven innovation.
John Kapiniaris (r) and Robert Selvaggio
The solutions add enhanced capabilities to Kirk’s offering — more efficient plate utilization, sustainable plate processing, and on press efficiency — which are vital to the company’s response to what John Kapiniaris describes as “resurgence in local demand in the
