The installation of Scunthorpe new arrival the F&K 16S 10 colour Flexo press with Smart GPS is well under way. It is antcipated that this will be operational early October.

Skymark Performance Films – a privately owned flexible packaging manufacturer – is investing to expand its site on Mannerberg Way, Scunthorpe.

The expansion follows a devastating fire that destroyed Skymark’s factory in Leominster, Herefordshire on 17 June 2009.

The 1,400sqm development in Scunthorpe will see the expansion of its printing and slitting function. The expansion of the site will increase the total number of positions to approx 80 with around 30 to 40 being new employment opportunities – mostly for non-skilled people

New state of the art printing equipment will be installed by the end of August and will be operational by end of September. This will ensure the company meets customer demands.

Dan Richards, Sales Development Manager at Skymark, said:

“While we cannot make a big impact on the redundancies taking place in the town of Scunthorpe, we can bring optimism to a significant number of people.

“Following the devastating fire at our Leominster facility, we have already completed our first investment in new equipment to restore lost production. This enables us to offer continued support to our current customers and to develop further.”

Cllr Mark Kirk, leader of North Lincolnshire Council, said:

“This is without doubt a huge investment in Scunthorpe and is a major boost to the local economy. It couldn’t come at a better time, with the recent announcement of job losses elsewhere in the town.

“I have every confidence that the company will succeed. And while it is sad to hear about its factory in Herefordshire, I am delighted to see the company expand its Scunthorpe site – creating much needed jobs for local people.”

Skymark has made its first NEW investment to bring back the lost capacity following the devasting fire at Leominster. The state of the art Fischer & Krecke FP 16S - 10 colour with Smart GPS is to be installed into our Scunthorpe site within August and be operational from September 2009.

The FP 16S-10 is capable of printing on all substrates. Amongst the standard equipment are a maintenance free gearless direct drive of the CI cylinder resulting in improved register performance, pivoting easily accessible intermediate dryers, and the ACCESS system, that allows for setting up non-operational print units during production run.

Registration and impression related set-up is amongst the most time consuming and costly tasks when changing over to a new print job. With the new SMARTGPS (Graphic Positioning System) these cost can be saved, because with SMARTGPS, there is no set-up.

• 10 colours Flexo Press
• No danger of over impression
• All job data is stored on the actual sleeve.
• No registration or target marks are required, saving substrate.
• Automatic inking and cleaning system

We are pleased to announce that we have once again been awarded supplier of the year by KC presneted to us on 23rd June 2009. This is the second time we have received this honor in the past 3 years and is awarded based on our record of service, quality, technical support and innovation. This award is truly prestigious as it is based on the performance of Pan Global suppliers.

This is a great reflection of the continuing hard work of all at Skymark and our commitment to strive to improve our service to all of our customers

Our most recent investment has proved to be priceless. Up till now the NGR operators had to manual strip polythene of cores in order to feed the NGR machine taking up valued resource and time to keep up with the 600kgs/hr output line, now with this new guillotine the operators were able to strip 3000kgs of film within half an hour which feed the line for 6 hours!!.

We are now able to increase our output from 220,000kgs per month to 350,000kgs per month!

Skymark offer a wide range of environmental sustainably products, please use the following links to find out more:

• SkyDEG
• SkyRECLAIM
• SkyJAZZ

Shaun Quinn (Engineering Manager) to cycle 130 miles in memory of 14-year-old cancer victim

Mr Quinn and five colleagues from Skymark Packaging Solutions, in Ilkeston, are hoping to raise at least £1,000 each for the charity by cycling from Workington to Sunderland. They will be joined by three friends on the trip. The team will started the ride on June 7 and are hoping to complete the distance over three days.

Alan Heappey, 51, is one of the work colleagues who will join Mr Quinn in the cycle ride. Despite breaking his arm during training, having been struck by a car, he said he was still keen to raise money for the charity. He said: "It was obviously an extremely difficult time for Shaun and this charity was there for him and his family, as well as Nathan. Hopefully we'll raise a lot of money."

Shaun a GRIEVING dad is preparing to embark on a 130-mile cycle ride to raise money for a cancer charity that cared for his son before his tragic death.

Shaun Quinn was devastated after his 14-year-old son, Nathan, died from a brain tumour just three days before Christmas in 2005.

Now, he and eight others are doing a coast-to-coast ride to raise cash for CLIC Sargent – a charity that cares for children with cancer.

Nathan had been ill for much of his life and had been diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of just four.

He bravely fought the condition but suffered a relapse three years later, before being able to enjoy five precious years of good health. His mother, Deborah, 44, and Shaun, of Kirk Hallam, then endured further heartache when doctors found a cancerous tumour on his brain in 2003. Doctors discovered the lump after their son collapsed.

Following two years of treatment, Nathan died on December 22, 2005.

Throughout his battle, CLIC offered vital support to Nathan, as well as his parents and their other son, Liam, now 22. Mr Quinn, 44, said: "We can't say a big enough 'thank-you' to them for the support they gave us.

"They organise days out for children suffering from cancer and their families and also took us away on holiday for a week. We went to Prestwick in Scotland, we'll always remember that." He added that his son, who had been a pupil at Kirk Hallam Community Technology College, had been incredibly brave in his battle for life.

"He was always a happy child, a very cheerful lad," said Mr Quinn. "He loved school and loved playing cricket."

Mr Quinn said he was touched by the support of his colleagues. He said: "They're a really good bunch of lads. I've known most of them for quite a few years and they were very important in the way they supported me."

At 0330 on the 17th June a major fire broke out at our Leominster site, thankfully no one was injured in the blaze and upto 15 fire crews worked hard to control the flames, including our members of staff who were on call fire responce.

A management meeting was held that morning at our Ilkeston site to put into action our very detailed disaster plan which enables us to move capacity to our other 2 sites, Ilkeston and Scunthorpe, and a number of key partners

Print facility at Scunthorpe

Support received to date has been fantastic and we thank all those that have been in contact offering there assistance in this challenging time.

We would also like to thank our customers for their understanding. We have contacted the majority and will continue to do so in the coming days, weeks and months ahead with our plan and strategy to continue supply

An office has now been established in Leominster. All our servers holding vital information regarding stocks, customer files, order history etc, was salvaged and is now fully operational.

We ask for your continued support and would like to thank all those who have sent their good wishes and letters of support. It is within our nature to bounce back from this, and all our efforts are now focused on the future of our buisness and with your support, we will continue supplying the high quality, responce and service you have come to expect.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us 01159 302020 or via email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it – thank you.

Skymark Performance Films, located in Scunthorpe, has also invested heavily in its future to secure its growing position with the Hygiene & Medical sector with the purchase of a new modern 5 layer cast extrusion line for embossed films, with a useful width of 2000mm and running speeds of upto 400m/min.

This will increase the capacity from 5,500te to over 11,000te per annum in this sector. Expectations are that turnover of the Scunthorpe site will double as a result of this investment in 2009. This new line is expected to be fully commissioned into Scunthorpe within Q1 2009.

“We’ve seen substantial growth within the INCO market (Adult incontinence). 100% of our business within this sector is export based (mainland Europe, Easter European emerging countries, North Africa, Middle East).�

The installation of the New Cast line is underway:

As part of Skymark's continual expansion program Skymark Packaging Solution Ltd, is in the last phase of its new extension. This extension confirms our growth and enable us to further expand our stoarge and conversion capabilities.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies indicates significant non-renewable energy and greenhouse gas emission reductions from the use of its Cyrel flexographic print and thermal platemaking processes are possible.

The two LCAs compare the environmental footprints of flexographic printing to gravure printing, and the footprint of thermal platemaking to solvent platemaking for flexography.

Data comparing flexo and gravure printing indicate that use of the flexo process alone result in significant reductions in both non-renewable energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 50% when converting flexible packaging plastic films.

In simple terms, for every one million square meters of printed plastic substrate switched from gravure to flexo, the resulting savings in non-renewable energy would be equivalent to approximately 102.4 litres of gasoline and savings in greenhouse gas emissions would be equivalent to removing approximately 69 typical European passenger cars from the road for one year.

The results of the second study comparing thermal platemaking to solvent platemaking for flexo indicate that thermal imaging results in a reduction in non-renewable energy of around 60% and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 51%.

The LCAs were conducted in accordance with ISO 14040 and 14044 guidelines and peer-reviewed by a panel of five independent experts coordinated by Five Winds International, a global consultancy recognised for its expertise in sustainable development.

Source: PackagingNews