Follow every pouch and roll from film reel and ink lot to seal strength.

A flexible packaging plant buys film by the reel and sells printed rollstock or finished pouches. A job is a stack of layers, such as clear BOPP outside, reverse printed ink and a cast polypropylene sealant bonded with solvent free adhesive. Each layer has its own supplier, micron and lot. A snack brand judges the pack on shelf life and seal strength. A leaking seal is blamed on the converter the moment it reaches the filling line. Margins are thin.

Software for flexible packaging converters keeps the structure, the film reels and the print cylinders in one job. Planners see the gravure press, the laminator, the slitter and the pouch machine as separate queues. Quality staff see which laminate roll a peel test belongs to. Sales staff see the quoted structure and the cylinder status. The record travels with the roll. Questions get short answers.

A brand owner sends artwork, a structure and a pack size, for example a three-layer laminate for a 250 gram stand-up pouch with a zipper. The estimator prices by film weight, ink coverage and press hours. Stores issues reels of PET, BOPP or polyethylene by micron and width, and the print room checks that the chrome plated gravure cylinders for the design are ready. The press prints, a laminator bonds the layers with adhesive, and the roll rests in the curing room. Then it moves on.

The slitter cuts the laminate to the width the customer’s form fill seal machine needs and winds it on three inch cores. Pouch lines form and seal the sides, gussets and bottoms. Quality staff test peel strength, heat seal strength, gauge and the coefficient of friction on samples. Residual solvent from the ethyl acetate used in inks is also checked. Results are written down. Each roll is labelled with its job number, length and core size, and the packing list reflects the same figures. Dispatch checks both.