中文For a prepress house, the decision to buy a second copy of a major piece of equipment is rarely about keeping up with demand alone. It is a statement of confidence in a technology partnership and a bet that the market for what that technology enables will keep growing. Splash Graphics, a Chicago-based pre-media provider, has just made that statement by installing a second Flexcel NX System from Miraclon, this time in a larger 50 by 80 inch format.
A Steady Pace of Innovation
The most important benefit of working with Miraclon and Flexcel NX Technology, said co-owner Dhiren Sanghani, is the steady pace of innovation. “The Miraclon technical team is constantly making improvements, coming up with new technological differences every few years,” he said. That cadence is why the company recently expanded its flexographic platemaking operations, a move that increases capacity, adds flexibility, and helps Splash produce and ship a wider variety of plate sizes to printers and converters nationwide more quickly.
According to Sanghani, the larger format matters because it lets the company serve a broader range of customer plate sizes without compromising turnaround. For a business whose customers are themselves under pressure to move faster, plate delivery speed is a competitive weapon that can win or lose an account.
Three Decades of Deliberate Bets
The latest expansion continues a pattern of major moves at key points in the company’s history, built on more than 30 years of strategic investments and technology partnerships. Splash Graphics began in 1992, when co-owner Valji Patel started the business with Bhavesh Vanani and Dhiren Sanghani, initially providing prepress services to Chicago-area printers.
In 1995 the company made its first major shift, adding multi-color presses and finishing systems to become a full-service printer. It invested in the largest Creo CTP unit available at the time, a 58 by 78 inch system, along with a Creo digital proofing system. “Besides feeding our own presses, we were shipping large-size plates all over the country. We were early adopters of this game-changing technology,” Patel recalled.
In 2006 Splash Graphics sold its printing operations and returned its focus to prepress and platemaking. “Instead of prepress diminishing, as we had feared in 1995, our prepress was flourishing, so this became our 100 percent focus,” Patel said. Two years later, in 2008, the company expanded into flexo prepress with Flexcel NX Technology.
Differentiating on Flat-Top Dots
Sanghani described the 2008 move into Flexcel NX as a deliberate effort to differentiate the company from its competition. Patel and Vanani evaluated the flexo platemaking options available then. Flexcel NX had only just entered the market, but the two determined it offered the differentiation they were looking for. “Flat-top dot technology was genuinely revolutionary, unlike anything else around, and delivered unmatched image quality and consistent print results on customers’ presses,” Vanani said.
Flat-top dots matter because they hold ink more consistently on press, reduce dot gain and deliver cleaner highlights, the kind of controllable quality that brand owners notice on a shelf. For a prepress house, selling that consistency is the core of the value proposition.
A Partnership That Keeps Evolving
Sanghani credited continuous advances in Flexcel NX with sharpening the company’s competitive edge. “The Miraclon technical team is constantly making improvements. PureFlexo Printing is a classic example, we were a beta site for the triple-form patterning and now use it whenever the work suits it,” he said. PureFlexo, which reduces unwanted ink fill-in on flexible substrates, is exactly the kind of incremental capability that keeps a longtime partner relevant.
Today Splash Graphics focuses on brand support, flexo and offset prepress services. Prepress for food packaging is its largest market at 60 percent, followed by medical, healthcare and shrink-sleeve labels. Additional services include packaging mock-ups and large-format display and signage.
Why It Matters Beyond the Plate
The company’s history, moving from prepress to printing and back to prepress, leaves it unusually well positioned to help customers improve quality, productivity and repeatability. A supplier that has run its own pressroom understands the consequences of a plate that does not perform, not just the specification on the order.
For converters weighing their own platemaking strategy, Splash Graphics is a reminder that depth of partnership, not just capital equipment, is what compounds into a durable advantage. The second Flexcel NX is less a capacity purchase than a vote of confidence in a relationship that has repeatedly paid back in new capability.
There is a wider lesson here about where prepress value now lives. As brand owners demand faster turnaround and more consistent colour, the prepress partner that can also prove its technology roadmap becomes strategic rather than transactional. Splash Graphics is effectively selling continuity of innovation, and the second Flexcel NX is the physical proof of that promise.
Source: THE PACKMAN – Splash Graphics doubles down on flexo platemaking with second Flexcel NX installation
