Luminer Enhances Short-run Capabilities with Digital Inkjet Printing

We sometimes find ourselves saying 'yes' first, then asking ourselves, 'how are we going to make this?' relates John Borrelli, COO of Luminer Converting Group. The ways in which the Luminer team has always been able to find an answer to this question is just one of the reasons for its success

Luminer is not your ordinary label converter. The company specializes in prime and secondary labels, on-pack/in-pack promotional products, multi-web advanced label constructions and a host of specialty converted products. And it doesn't hesitate to take on new challenges.

Sticky roots

Luminer Converting came into being in 1989 through a partnership of two high school friends, Borrelli and Tom Spina, now the company's president. Spina had been part-owner of Web-Cote Industries, a small hot-melt pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) coating company. He saw the opportunities presented by integrating narrow-web flexographic printing and converting with hot-melt adhesive coating to create a variety of products. Selling his stake in Web-Cote to his partners, Spina began a new venture with Borrelli.

The company operates two manufacturing plants in Lakewood, NJ, and Red Lion, PA. Some 45 employees, run a dozen printing presses including flexo presses up to 18 inches wide and supporting 14 colors and two digital presses. Auxiliary processes include in-line folding, in-line pattern adhesive coating, diecutting and perforating, off-line folding and gluing, and multi-web handling.

Luminer supplies printed and converted products to a wide range of markets, with a significant presence in pharmaceuticals, health and beauty, medical devices, industrial and promotion. Although the company produces high-quality primary and secondary pressure-sensitive labels for many industries, Borelli says its expertise lies in the ability to produce unique label constructions, and it will go in whatever direction is required to meet the needs of its customers.

Broad expertise

"We are always pushing ourselves, especially with our multi-web constructions," he relates. "We run two, three and four-ply products, some with the addition of in-line hot melt adhesives, cold glue, in-line folding, off-line folding and gluing, and web reinsertion/reregister."

"With our expertise in multi-web manufacturing, the label portion of our business has really focused on expanded content labels," continues Borrelli. "We manufacture every type of expanded content label including booklet labels, in-line fold instant redeemable coupon (IRC) labels, clean-release IRC labels and peel/reseal labels."

In the health and beauty sector, Luminer manufactures a variety of pressure-sensitive cosmetic devices using its in-line hot-melt capabilities—everything from depilatory products to nail care and nail decorating products. "We have expanded this area to provide customers a complete turnkey product production platform, going straight from initial design and manufacturing through to final packaging," says Borrelli. Medical devices, for example, can incorporate up to five webs with in-line adhesives to produce very specific customer-driven products that require print and diecutting, vacuum diecutting or air eject diecutting.

Continual improvement for growth

According to Spina, Luminer's primary mission is to provide the highest quality products and most knowledgeable customer service. "We have a huge focus on continual improvement. This takes place in many areas, including investment in capital equipment, design, and in-house modifications. Our quality manufacturing system is continually updated, while always maintaining the strictest cGMP processes."

Borrelli is optimistic that each of the company's three segments will experience growth in the coming years. For its prime and secondary label business, Luminer continues to invest in both short-run, high-quality digital printing and medium- and long-run state-of-the-art servo flexo technology.

Luminer's fastest growing segment is its expanded content label business. "Many companies are trying to get into it, and some are good at it," he says. "But not many can do every type of expanded content label completely in-house. We've done it for years and there is a real need for these products due to regulatory and marketing requirements."

The company's third business segment is the device business, which Luminer defines as any product that performs a function other than identification. "We typically become contract manufacturers for medical, diagnostic or industrial companies that have engineered particular products and need a high-quality converter to produce them," says Borrelli.

Digital: Just one more tool (for now)

Luminer's quest for ways to do things differently and better led the company to invest in digital inkjet technology from Epson. Luminer first wet its feet in digital printing with an entry-level toner-based press but needed more capability.

Borrelli says Luminer decided to add digital primarily as a tool for customer service and to enhance its manufacturing capabilities. Selling digital labels as a new product offering may happen at some point, but it wasn't the initial driver.

"We were looking for ways to alleviate some issues we were experiencing with short-run flexographic printing," recalls Borrelli. "It was a time-consuming process, not only when plate mounting and inking up the press, but even more when matching difficult or custom colors. We were frustrated with rejects and the reworks from jobs that didn't initially match the colors the designers were requesting."

"Many of our products go through several production processes before they are finished, especially in our device and expanded content label businesses," he explains. "The Epson has become another tool in that process, and using it depends on run size." For now, the sweet spot is about 5,000 linear feet or less for production runs, but the digital printing operation also produces label samples for new and existing customers.

Finding the tool

To find the optimal solution, Luminer took seven employees from production, prepress, QC, engineering and management to Labelexpo 2012 in Chicago to investigate a large array of digital offerings. The team knew what it was looking for. "Price point was a major consideration, but even more important were print quality, consumable costs and the company behind the machine," recountsBorrelli. In addition, it was very important that the digital press could print labels on clear film (which drove the need for white), had no special substrate requirements and that graphics would match the look of its flexo-printed labels. "We did not want the raised-letter look that is sometimes associated with UV inkjet."

The Luminer team decided on the seven-color Epson SurePress L-4033AW. Making it stand out for Luminer were color gamut, the option for white ink, its ability to print on film, metallic, paper and gloss, and acquisition cost.

Implementation

Borrelli says that the training and support during initial setup were essential to their success, along with the hand-holding and support following start up. Results came quickly. "Transferring jobs to the SurePress has allowed us to work more efficiently and we immediately saw time-saving benefits compared to flexographic printing."

With digital printing it's very important to be prepared on both the front and back ends of the press. Luminer had sufficient capacity in its prepress area, and the transition of prepress personnel from a traditional role to a prepress/digital production one went well.

The company also added finishing capability to support the output of the new press. "We already had reregister finishing capabilities on one press, and now we have set up the others with Rotary Technologies Servo 3000 systems," says Borrelli. "This allows us to use existing equipment to not only diecut and overlam but also add spot colors such as fluorescent, metallic and varnishes."

The ability to run the same stock used in its flexo operation was an important criterion for Luminer and has paid dividends on several levels.

"We've hit one or two snags but will continue to run all types of stock including film, foil, paper, gloss, matte, and metallized. It is a great benefit in cost, storage, and most important, repeatability to run the same stock as flexo and have the same appearance on the final product, whether running 100 feet or 100,000 feet."

The Epson has also met the company's needs for color matching and custom color reproduction. "Spot color matching has been very good due to the colors being created using six colors as opposed to four," notes Borelli. For example, he cites several labels the company runs for lipstick and nail polish that used to be "…a nightmare."

"With the Epson those colors still require tweaking by the operator, but it's nowhere near as difficult or as time consuming as with flexo," he says. "We can run multiple colors and hit PMS colors right-on as judged by both eye and our spectrophotometer."

The ease of color matching on the Epson press has provided flexibility that opens up capacity on its flexo presses. "We are also queuing up multiple jobs on the Epson. We put a gap between jobs with blank die lines for setup and just keep right on going. The colors are right on, and this frees up more capacity on our larger presses."

Investing in people

Luminer not only understands how to be successful with the products it offers but also that such success is due to its employees.

"We are very proud to still have our first, second, third and fifth employees with us after 20 years and many others with 10-plus years," he says. "We're proud that we still pay 100 percent of their health insurance for both individual and family, share profits, have monthly incentive programs and have a generous match to 401k programs. It makes sense to retain people in whom you have invested so much time and training to produce the specialty products we run."

Spina shares Borelli's pride in their accomplishments and puts it into a larger perspective. "Manufacturing in the U.S. is not easy. Competition is fierce. To provide a continually improving environment in which our employees flourish over the long haul is a great source of pride." pP