The sleeves in the flexo printing process represent an important asset: the quality of the printed material depends also on the accuracy and quality of the sleeves. Each single print run relies on how the sleeves have been stored and protected when not in use. Often the sleeves are left on the floor in the proximity of the printing machines grouped sometimes in a random way.

The Sleeve Storage is aimed at preserving in the best way the quality of the sleeves and in helping the operators to properly store and use each single sleeve.

The basic principle of the storage is to keep the sleeves in vertical position; this will help to make the sleeves lasting for long time in a good shape.

The second added value of the storage is to help in the operability; a well-organized distribution of the sleeves in various racks certainly helps the operator to search and find in a very short time the required sleeve.

The Manual sleeve storage is the combination of many racks, modular and moveable in order to contain a given set of sleeves. On the two sides of the storage there are “fixed racks”, in the middle you can add “moveable racks”, as much as needed to fit the given set of sleeves. The 6-rack structure is an example (see main picture).

The modularity is an additional characteristic of the storage; the rack is typically 800mm large, 2750mm long and 3450mm high. Each rack on two levels, contains about 50/60 sleeves. Installations have been done with 2 up to 27 racks.