Founded by Ladislav Verner, in the year 1992, Soma Engineering manufactures flexo printing presses, laminators and slitter rewinders. Even though Soma has been around for 26 years, it claims to have manufactured its first slitter rewinder back in the year 1956 when it was known as Tesla and manufactured electronic components. Today, Soma has around 230 employees with operations across the world and customers across Japan, South Korea, China, India, the former Soviet countries, Europe and USA.
At Plastindia, Soma highlighted a variety of solutions, including the Soma Flex Optima2, Soma flex Optima and Soma Flex Premia from its flexographic presses product range. The company also talked about its Lamiflex E, its Venus lll and lll – T and Pluto lll slitter rewinders — and Flexmont S and Flexmont Arun plate mounters.
“The core business of our company is the production of flexo printing presses. We produce presses with a CI drum because we believe that is the future. Another positive aspect of
the machine is that it delivers accurate output and supports solvent-based, water-based and UV/LED cured inks,” said Patrik Vejrek, area sales manager for Soma Engineering. “Talking about laminators, we pro-
The company recently launched Optima2, a flexoprinting press with a printing width up to 1275 mm which can be extended up to 1400 mm with the next upgrade
duce solvent-less laminators as they are more in demand now keeping government restrictions in mind.”
The company recently launched Optima2, a flexo printing press with a printing width up to 1275 mm which can be extended up to 1400 mm with the next upgrade. The machine has a print repeat length of 800-1200 mm and is capable of printing on LDPE, HDPE, PE/PP, CPP, BOPP, PET, film laminate and paper.
“Although we see Asia as a predominantly rotogravure territory, we have observed in the last few years that the demand for flexo machines in this region has gone up significantly. The main reason behind this, according to me, is that rotogravure machines cannot print well on thin materials. According to me, the environmental impact has also deeply affected the sale of rotogravure machines,” he added.
Vejrek feels that flexo technology in India is quite fresh and people have been hesitant in adapting to the change. Nevertheless, he expects the technology to gain momentum in the Indian market soon and that in turn will lead India to become one of the biggest markets for flexo machines. Soma has operated in India in collaboration with the Insight group over the past several years. It has gained considerable inroads in the Indian market after the tie-up.
