What is green pad printing?
Kent's award winning "Green Pad Printing System" is an innovative pad printing process which employs a number of novel green features each resulting from new technology and engineering advancements. The result is an efficient and environmental friendly pad printing process.
The 5 elements of green pad printing:
Green-Cup
New sealed ink cup system able to reduce consumption of ink and cleaning solvent of as much as 90%.
Green-Plate
Low cost, environmental-friendly laser engrave-able printing plates provide great performance and high quality prints.
KCTP
Direct Computer-to-Plate laser engraving machine. Eliminates chemical etching with films and acids.
UV Ink
UV ink dries instantly when exposed to a UV light source and contains 75% less solvent than conventional solvent base ink. It is the most effective GREEN element to reduce solvent evaporation.
G-Printer
High efficiency pad printing machines that use less labor, less energy and achieve higher quality and productivity.
Why convert to green pad printing?
Green pad printing minimizes pollution, lower production cost, reduce labour, and increase productivity. It is a win-win situation for all parties involved: business owners, factory managers, machine operators, and all people who live and work using pad printing machines. Awareness for pad printing pollution has been raised over the past few years. Many factories have had successful results by adapting to the Green Pad Printing approach. Not only did their factories become environmentally conscious, they also saved manufacturing costs up to 40%, changed their corporate image and increased their business by going Green.
If your working environment is one of those who are dumping tons of solvent into the air, pouring hundreds of liters of toxic chemicals into rivers, polluting our soil, water and air then you know we will have to pay for the damage someday. If we are not paying in this generation our children will have to pay for us later.
Success stories
Case 01
Industry: Medical accessories manufacturing
At the beginning of 2008, a medical accessories manufacturer approached Kent to improve their pad printing pollution problem. Their Pad printing and assembly had to be done in a clean room. They ran 14 primitive open ink tray machines in a bad air ventilation room. They said workers breathed in more ink solvent than air in the pad printing room. It has become a threat to their workers’ health.
Kent advised them to go for Green Pad Printing. After 3 months, Kent helped them convert their old factory into a modern Green Pad Printing setup. They use G-Cups (sealed ink cups) to control solvent evaporation and G-Plates (laser plates) to comply with the FDA safety process requirement to eliminate the use of acid & chemicals. They also use Green printers with automation to print both sides of the accessory by one printer.
They cut 14 machines down to 7, reduced 90% of solvents evaporation and labor by half, cut film and chemicals to make printing plates. Reduced rejects from 15% to below 0.5%. They can now carry out pad printing and final assembly in-line in the clean room. And most importantly, they don’t have to worry about their worker’s health anymore.
Case 02
Industry: IC chips industry
A large IC “Packaging and Testing” company wanted to upgrade their old pad printing setup. They wanted to replace their 15-year-old IC chips pad printing system supplied by Kent. For the past 15 years they have been pad printing IC chips using small pneumatic Kent machines (around 7-10 machines) with 10” open ink trays. They used polymer plates and 2-component ink. Efficiency was low and air pollution was bad. It didn’t match their hi-tech image.
Two years ago customer approached Kent for a change. By mid-2008 Kent supplied them the first of 3 Green-Printers with all green pad printing elements: KCTP, G-Plate, G-Cup, and G-Printer. They increased productivity by 10 times and cut reject rate to below 0.5%. They completely eliminated their old setup and went for Green Pad Printing ever since.
