中文When a company with the pedigree of Windmöller & Hölscher launches a new press, the packaging world pays attention. This week it introduced Oneflex – a modular central-impression (CI) flexo press for flexible packaging – and the numbers alone are enough to turn heads: production speeds up to 600 metres per minute and printing widths up to 1,650 millimetres.
But the spec sheet is not the real story. The real story is what W&H decided to put inside a machine aimed at a broader slice of the market. Oneflex is available with eight or ten colour decks and a newly developed print deck designed to improve print stability. Its modular architecture lets printers configure the machine around their own production requirements. According to W&H, Oneflex brings a format range to this segment that was previously available only in its premium portfolio. In plain English: the good stuff is trickling down.
Holger Kreilkamp, W&H’s director of product management, was blunt about it. “ONEFLEX is not just another CI flexo press. It is a new machine that brings key strengths of W&H CI flexo technology together in one machine.” He is right to draw the line. The flexible packaging market is crowded with “good enough” presses. What W&H is selling is the feeling that you are getting premium DNA at a more accessible configuration – stable print quality, high output, easier operation, and the flexibility to meet changing production requirements.
Safety got its own chapter in the development brief, too. W&H describes Oneflex as its safest CI flexo press to date, combining advanced safety features with an operator-oriented layout and improved access. For a press that runs at 600m/min with rollers, webs and solvents in close quarters, that is not a footnote. It is a selling point for the people who actually have to live next to the machine every shift.
For those who want more, there is Oneflex Ultimate – a higher-performance configuration reaching 700m/min, with an extended repeat length, enhanced print stability and additional technologies. So the base machine is a platform, not a ceiling.
The timing is deliberate. Oneflex will be officially presented at Pack Expo International in Chicago on 18 October 2026, the biggest stage in the North American packaging calendar. That is no accident. Flexible packaging is one of the fastest-growing, most hotly contested segments in print, and W&H is arriving with a machine built to look like a value play without feeling like a compromise.
The broader context is a flexo market under pressure from all sides. Film converters face shorter runs, more SKUs and relentless price competition, while brand owners demand higher quality and faster turnarounds. A press that promises premium stability at a configurable price is aimed squarely at that squeeze. W&H is essentially saying: you should not have to choose between a press you can afford and a press that performs.
For mid-size converters, the modular pitch is the draw. Buying only the decks and features you need today, then expanding as work grows, turns a scary capital decision into a staged one. That lowers the barrier to upgrading out of older, less capable lines – and keeps W&H in the conversation when those converters finally trade up. Oneflex also signals where W&H sees its future: rather than letting premium technology sit behind a price wall, it is pushing those strengths down into the volume segment. If the press delivers on the brief in Chicago, expect a busy order book.
The quiet winner in all of this is the converter who no longer has to over-buy. Modular design means paying for capability as it is needed, not financing features that sit idle for years. In a margin-tight market, that financial flexibility can be the difference between a sensible upgrade and a stranded asset.
W&H’s move also tells us something about where the premium press makers see their future. Rather than defending high prices and ceding the volume segment to aggressive challengers, the smart players are pushing their best technology down-market. That squeezes the budget brands and raises the baseline expectation for everyone. For converters, more choice at the top of the mid-range is unambiguously good news – as long as they read the configurator carefully and only pay for what they will actually run.
For the wider packaging print sector, Oneflex is a reminder that the pace of flexo innovation has not slowed even as the market consolidates. Converters facing shorter runs and pickier brand owners need presses that can pivot without penalty, and modular, fast, safe machines are the answer the moment demands. W&H’s decision to debut in Chicago signals it intends to fight for that business rather than cede it – and that competition is the best thing that could happen to converters shopping for their next press.
Source: Labels & Labeling
