Inkjet Express

Anyone who has been to a trade show in the past couple years wouldn’t be surprised to hear that inkjet printing solutions are moving hard and fast into the packaging arena. They are being offered in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they have in common is a propensity for cost-effective short-run printing.

More and more package printers are jumping onboard the inkjet express and with a good measure of success. What follows is a smattering of some of those success stories.

Digital print and cut

Beiler Printing is a small, family-owned printer located in Denver, Pa. Its printed products include labels, wedding invitations, holiday greeting cards, screen printed apparel, and promotional products and advertising specialties. Its printing capabilities include three sheetfed presses: a black and white digital, a 4-color digital, and a 2-color conventional. In May of last year, the company installed an Allen Datagraph iTech AXXIS Digital Label System (including the label printer and the label finisher), bringing its complete label production in-house as deadlines grew tighter and runs smaller.

Beiler produces labels for the local agricultural businesses that populate the area; many of the food products are packaged locally and sent directly to stores. Before installing the iTech AXXIS Digital Label System, the company farmed out its labeling work.
Beiler chose the Allen Datagraph solution over laser-based systems because it offered greater substrate flexibility. Because it isn’t heat-based, it can run polypropylenes, vinyls, and polyesters without concerns about melting the substrate. The company uses the system for all of its 4-color printing and finishing of custom labels, printing on a variety of substrates in run lengths averaging between 250 and 1,000.

Producing labels in-house, says Owner Bryon Beiler, has given the company “control over our destiny, as far as turnaround. We’ve been able to get more work, because the iTech AXXIS Digital Label System enables us to meet deadlines and provide a lower cost to our customers—as our consumables costs are very reasonable. We can turn work out in less than a day if we have to. Now that we’re doing the labels in-house, our profit margin is also much better—we doubled it.”

The iTech AXXIS Digital Label System uses an Epson printer to produce roll-fed, high-resolution graphics on substrates 4˝ to 8.5˝ wide and up to five feet a minute. The iTech AXXIS Digital Label Finisher laminates and digitally diecuts any shape designed as a vector file in Adobe Illustrator, and strips, slits, and rewinds labels at up to 10 feet per minute.

With this system, Beiler Printing can produce 4-color custom labels with special shapes—without the need for costly dies and tooling. “The finishing system is one of the best features,” says Beiler. “It lets us cut any shape or size label for our customers. It keeps customers coming back—there aren’t a lot of shops that have this capability.”

Spot color reproduction

Southern Calif.-based label printer Tape & Label Converters installed the first Epson SurePress™ L-4033A digital label press in North America late last year. The company plans on using the short-run digital press to respond to the changing demands of the label printing industry—more complex images requiring higher print resolution and multiple spot colors.

“SurePress is a perfect fit for us because it offers the print quality and spot color reproduction our clients demand, as well as allows us to reach out to new clients with greater capability,” says Mas Crawford, vice president of sales for Tape & Label Converters. “In addition, smaller quantities and shorter lead-times are a given in our business, and with SurePress our makeready time is dramatically reduced, operation is simple, and maintenance requirements are reduced, giving us increased productivity from our previous solution.”

Designed for label converters, large-scale product manufacturers, and commercial printers, the SurePress digital label press is designed to work easily with existing digital workflows and prints on a range of off-the-shelf substrates with no pre-coating required. It prints up to 13-inches wide and its newly-developed SurePress AQ 6-color, water-based pigment ink can produce a wide range of colors.

“From its inception, SurePress was designed to produce excellent print quality with remarkable color at an affordable price, and we expect this installation with Tape & Label Converters to prove it is a solution perfect for small to mid-size converters,” said Mark Elsbernd, North American region sales manager, Epson America.

Digital combo

International Label & Printing Co., Inc. of Elk Grove Village, Ill. recently installed a 13˝ Nilpeter FA-3 combination digital/UV flexographic press. The company has been in business since 1929 and caters to a wide variety of markets including food and beverage packaging, advertising specialties, coupons, and thermal transfer labels and tags, while producing an assortment of paper/film/foil pressure-sensitive labels using flexographic, offset, letterpress, and now, digital technology.

The new press contains three UV flexo units, in addition to a Caslon 4-color digital module—all in-line, providing the company with numerous printing options. “This press will allow us to better serve our customers with digital quality and the flexibility of multiple-version, medium/short-run capabilities that only digital printing can provide,” said Tony Dardano, executive vice president, sales and marketing for the company.

According to Nilpeter, the press is currently the only installation of its kind in North America and “combines the advanced flexibility of digital printing with the proven reliability of conventional flexographic printing and converting.” The Caslon digital module supports many standard substrates without the need for pre-coating or specially coated materials.

The Caslon inkjet printing system is based on Xaar print head technology and produces high-gloss printing with no need for varnish. Caslon inks are comparable to conventional UV flexo inks.

Prototypes, short runs

Packaging, displays, and display stands typically incorporate a fairly elaborate design, since the overriding purpose of these components is to encourage people to buy products. While offset has been a primary printing method used, it is becoming increasingly clear that wide-format digital flatbed printing can play an important role for such items as prototypes and samples, exclusive small print runs, regionalized products, or even personalized products.

Hanbuch Packaging GmbH in Pfungstadt, Germany is one of the pioneers in this growing area, using an Océ Arizona® 250 GT printer. Andreas Hanbuch, managing director of the company, which has been in the packaging industry since 1950, spotted a niche in the market. “The more elaborate the packaging or display stand, the more difficult it is to evaluate the effect on the basis of a white sample and a two-dimensional printout during planning and approval in the run-up to production,” he says.

His solution is to produce samples that are true representations of the original using the Océ Arizona 250 GT printer. This solution is far superior to the current method, which entails presenting prototypes from printed cardboard with the color effect simulated using printouts and computer models.

“Since we installed the Océ Arizona 250 GT printer, our customers have received models that can no longer be differentiated from mass production,” says Hanbuch. “That makes it easier for the customer to make a decision, and it has already helped us to acquire some new orders.”

In addition to manufacturing displays of all kinds, Hanbuch Packaging also produces consumable packaging, mainly for local branded item manufacturers. An increasing number of small runs are being produced that are not for testing and inspection purposes, but are manufactured for actual use, notes Hanbuch. “In many cases we have to manufacture special print runs with small quantities within the scope of a bigger job,” he says. “Usually they are language versions for countries in which the brand is only represented in a few locations.”

Hanbuch purchased the Océ printer for these requirements, as he found that offset printing was usually not economical for such short runs. “It was a combination of financial interest and curiosity,” he recalls. “We wanted to take a look at digital flatbed printing, so to speak, and see what happened. I am totally convinced that digital printers such as the Océ Arizona Series will displace offset printing as far as small print runs are concerned.”

Hanbuch continues to look for new application areas for his flatbed printer. “We are currently testing a workflow system to quickly produce personalized gift packaging at low cost,” he says. “The Océ Arizona Series has a great deal of potential,” he says. “I am certain that we will develop many other ideas in discussions with our customers.”

Unique effects

Thom Urban has been in the printing industry for more than 40 years. In January, 2009, at the height of the recession, he and his wife Mary founded Core Color Graphics in Fallsington, Pa. With right-hand men Ray March and Bob Smith, Urban runs the 6-person shop that provides a full range of printing and lithography services, from brochures and postcards to window clings and custom POP displays. In its first 18 months, Core Color Graphics accumulated more than 200 clients.

Urban considers himself a pressman by trade and throughout the years has worked on everything from a 2-color press to the most complex print and production machines at a large lithography firm. March is an expert in printing and computing, and has extensive experience in corporate prepress production.

To establish the production capabilities for Core Color Graphics, Urban purchased four machines: a 2-color commercial press, a 6-color press, a 4-color digital press, and a Roland LEC-300 VersaUV 30˝ inkjet printer/cutter. He chose the VersaUV because of its unique capabilities. “With all the effects you can create, the LEC is in a league of its own,” says Urban. “The white ink plus clear coat, together with the contour cutting really sold me. It’s opened up new markets for us.”

The VersaUV prints, diecuts, scores, and creases graphics all in one automated workflow. In addition to CMYK and white inks, clear coat can be layered into various textures and patterns for embossing and spot varnishing effects on flexible and rigid substrates. The system is designed to produce affordable, highly customized short-run labels, folding cartons, and other packaging prototypes.

Urban has enjoyed creating unique effects on the LEC-300. “We’ve done beautiful prototypes and packging planograms, fantastic foil and embossed labels, wedding invitations with beautiful appliqués, pop-up displays, and custom turned-edge boxes with embossing,” he says. “The designs we can create are exquisite and unique.”

The LEC has led Core Color Graphics to new markets. “We create samples and prototypes with innovative textures and a look that gets clients excited about our capabilities,” reports Urban. “It’s a real icebreaker in new client meetings; especially if we are presenting to someone who understands printing and design—the samples knock their socks off.”

With the creative techniques he is using, Urban has been able to attract the attention of some very high profile clients. “If you want something out of the ordinary, something ‘really special,’ Core Color Graphics is in a position to show off your designs the way no one else can,” he says.