There are umpteen applications for labels and almost as many processes to produce them. Flexo, screen, gravure, letterpress and offset all have a share of this section of the packaging market. But those in the know say the real money-spinner, at least in the future, will come from digital production.
Digital means flexibility to print labels without costly repro or time-consuming makeready bottlenecks. But just as there are benefits, question marks remain. At LabelExpo Europe in Brussels in September, digital machines will crowd the halls as they have done in recent years. But Mike Fairley of FINAT, the Netherlands-based global label printers association, asks some pertinent questions. How well can you manage the colour with digital? How much speed do you need in your press? Do you finish offline, nearline or inline? Add laser diecutting and you open a whole new world of potential.
While machinery manufacturers have been proclaiming a digital onslaught for years, statistics suggest timid beginnings. Digital’s share of the global label printing market is tipped to remain in single digits for most of this decade.
Still, that’s a big market. Single percentage points still represent a potential huge dollar value for those in the right place at the right time. You’ve got to be in it to win it.
Craig Heckenberg, business unit manager at Epson Australia, points to figures from Smithers Pira that show digital label printing is at just 3% of the label market in 2012, or approximately 1.35 billion square metres. This is expected to grow to 7.2% by 2017.
Within those headline global numbers, advanced markets like Australia may already show digital taking a greater share of the volumes. Grish Rewal, director of Absolute Electronics, which has the agency for Xeikon label presses in Australia, estimates around 15% of Australian-made labels are printed digitally. He bullishly predicts this will rise to 60% in five years.
While HP Indigo pioneered digital label printing using its patented ElectroInk and Xeikon’s 3000 series followed with a dry-toner process for the self-adhesives market, much of the focus is now on inkjet. The inkjet market is seeing an increasing number of narrow-web label machines appear. At the last LabelExpo Europe in 2011, there were as many as 30 different solutions on show. Relative newcomers to the Australian market include the Epson SurePress L-4033A.
Inkjet is knocking on the door and starting to achieve photo quality images at a price point that makes digital labels more competitive. The Epson SurePress L-4033A and AW have Epson’s micro-piezo printheads for image quality, colour accuracy and high water and rub resistance using SurePress AQ ink, says Heckenberg.
“SurePress has a unique dual drying system that enables the press to print onto uncoated off-the-shelf substrates without the need for any pre-treatment. This allows converters to produce digital labels on a broader range of substrate while minimising inventory.”
UV inkjet also brings benefits. The two main advantages for label converting are in the technology and the business model – UV curing means stocks do not need to be primed and most presses run without click charges.
Screen Australia managing director Peter Scott says the new TruePress Jet L350UV uses UV ink, an advantage over non-UV systems. Using inkjet rather than toner means greater productivity due to higher speed.
“It is currently the most productive digital label press available in Australia. It adheres to Screen’s engineering philosophy with a robust build and high duty cycle. Our finishing and converting options are very much the same as others since third-party offline finishing is proving to be popular. For inline finishing, we’re introducing some interesting options in 2014, in collaboration with our channel partner Jet Technologies, which is very experienced in the narrow web sector.”
EFI’s Stephen Emery, vice president, EFI Jetrion Industrial Inkjet Systems, tells ProPrint that in Jetrion, “we have a technology originally invented by one of the largest packaging ink companies in the world, and, under EFI, it has advantages other companies cannot offer”.
A variety of machines
Beyond rollfed equipment, the inkjet label market is also catered for by wide-format devices. At PrintEx 2011, Roland DG gave an Australian preview of its VersaStudio BN-20, a 20-inch inkjet machine producing durable outdoor graphics, but its print-and-cut capability enables it to double as a labels and decals printer.
There is much interest in the new Memjet technology, which has radically redesigned the inkjet printhead to fire millions of droplets per second at 1,600dpi, what Memjet Corporation describes as “waterfall” technology. Rapid Machinery in Australia was the first company to develop a commercially available label press using Memjet heads – its Rapid X1 and X2 machines (see bottom of page).
At PacPrint this year, Screen premiered its TruePress Jet L350 UV, which adds speed and volume to the inkjet label equation. The press will be released locally this month and Screen Australia managing director Peter Scott is hopeful of an installation before year’s end. EFI also has its high-end Jetrion series of inkjet label presses, sold through DES in Australia.
The toner route
Mr Labels is a 37-year-old operation with 21 staff in Brisbane’s Bulimba, and for most of those years it was exclusively a flexo and screen operation. A Gidue flexo line and a Frankini screenprint press are still the workhorses of the production floor, but three years ago the company increased its readiness for short runs and variable-data by adding a Xeikon 3300 digital label press from Australian agency Absolute Electronics.
Paul O’Brien, a director of Mr Labels, says the Xeikon line is used mostly for runs of under 30,000 impressions. Over that mark, it makes sense to switch to analogue. The choice of whether to print digitally is also determined by label size, number of changes, colours and substrates. At 1,200×1,200dpi, the Xeikon trumps flexo for resolution, he says, but when clients specify a PMS, flexo reclaims its turf.
“We don’t have a specific market for digital labels, but we find that, for example, in the transport industry, consignment and tracking labels tend to be printed on the Xeikon.”
At the time of purchase, he identified food labels as an area for the Xeikon, which uses QA-1 toner, approved by the USFDA for indirect food contact.
But O’Brien sounds a caution: time saved by skipping makereadies is added back again in finishing if this is done offline. Mr Labels has a French Smag dedicated digital label line from Gulmen Engineering. Before that, all the Xeikon output was finished on the Gidue, including varnishing, cold foiling or laminating and diecutting.
He is happy with the Xeikon’s dry-toner printing but could just as easily have opted for an HP Indigo WS with ElectroInk. “It’sreally a toss of the coin. We went into a couple of factories overseas that had both, to suit different workflows.”
Assta Label House in Sydney is a strong force in label converting. The 67-year-old narrow-web specialist at Peakhurst employs some 35 staff, including press operators versed in its Lintec and Nilpeter machines.
Stephen Scorah, Assta Group’s production manager, tells ProPrint that traditional rotary technology still wins on ink laydown. But that has not discouraged Assta from adding an HP Indigo WS4500 and recently a WS6600 for short- to medium-run jobs.
“We got into digital printing due to the diversity of substrates that can be printed digitally, and also due to the expanding range of substrates that are required by the wine label market and others,” he says.
Scorah says whether a job goes rotary letterpress or digital depends on length, substrate and cost. “The advantages of digital printing are we can give a 24- to 48-hour service on urgent jobs, no printing plates are required, we’re able to produce numbering jobs without any extra cost, and the quality is equal to if not better than most other printing presses.”
Fantastick Labels in Melbourne’s Campbellfield specialises in label and package converting, which until recently was performed solely on its letterpress machines – two full-rotary Nilpeter B200s and a semi-rotary Iwasaki. Last year, Fantastick added digital label printing with an HP Indigo WS4600, taking it into shorter runs and winning it new market share in food and cosmetics.
Tania Mathias, general manager and sales director of the 23-year-old family company, says the hunt for a digital alternative had been going some four years. “We were printing a lot more colours and set-up costs were becoming quite high. Digital has enabled us to reduce set-up times, print shorter runs and print on a wide range of substrates.”
Quality and speed were the factors that drew Fantastick to the HP Indigo over the Xeikon. At that time, inkjet speeds were not up to the company’s requirements. The Xeikon 3300 was the closest comparison but service and support levels, slightly more amenable click charges and availability for quick delivery swung the decision to HP, says Mathias.
Mark Daws, general manager of Currie’s HP Indigo labels & packaging division, claims that Indigo has a whopping 95% share of digital narrow webs installed across Australia and New Zealand.
“With speeds of 30-60 metres per minute, the flagship WS6600 press is one of the fastest digital production presses on the market,” says Daws. “It achieves exceptional quality reproduction, and in the majority of cases superior to conventional printed means. The current running speeds of HP Indigo platforms see our customers producing run lengths of between 4,000 and 6,000 lineal metres competitively before crossing over to conventional means.”
A specialist’s market
Packaging has come under increased attention recently as margins and volumes in document printing get squeezed. There’s a theory that the average litho house should try to expand into packaging; it could offer a lifeline as sheetfed offset work declines. But is there a place for commercial printers in the digital label revolution?
Absolute Electronics’ Rewal has a pragmatic approach. He believes digital labels are a greater opportunity for label specialists than for sheetfed commercial printers, even those with some knowledge of digital printing.
“Printing labels is a totally different mindset and knowledge base to sheetfed. To begin with, you need to think continuous narrow-web, a multitude of substrates such as polypropylene, polyethylene, PET, BOPP, cast coat, machine coat, co-extruded – and so on.
“Label printers traditionally print in spot colours and will focus heavily on embellishments like hot and cold foil, embossing, high build screen, semi or full rotary diecutting, which all requires specialist knowledge not generally available in a sheetfed environment.”
Case study: Australian innovator
Aussie know-how got into the mix in 2010 when Australian label press developer Rapid Machinery combined with US innovator Kia Silverbrook to integrate his Memjet technology into what became the Rapid X1 and X2 digital label presses – at speeds unseen in the digital label sector. Since then, Silverbrook Research has been acquired by Memjet USA, which is independently producing Memjet-designed presses.
The applications are wide-ranging, says Nick Mansell of Rapid Machinery, from groceries, cosmetics, wines, security, specialties, to point of sale, light commercial, in-plant, on-demand printing and commercial short-run printing.
Prior to that, the company, which is based in Chatswood, Sydney, had been collaborating with Australian IT developer Advanced Inkjet Technology to develop a range of UV inkjet solutions for industrial labels and product marking.
Mansell tells ProPrint the advantages of Memjet technology are “speed of print (independent of image complexity), colour-to-colour and image-to-image registration accuracy, dot resolution, colour gamut, ease of use, and minimal moving parts”.
Rapid’s Memjet label solutions premiered at Ipex 2010 and include an array of finishing, embellishing, printing and converting solutions. It has recently moved into digital diecutting with the D2 range. This meant on-demand finishing to match the short-run promise of digital.
“You can print one or two labels and the first or second will be saleable. Wasting saleable goods in making the diecutter ready would be senseless,” Mansell told ProPrint last year.
“It is not uncommon for a semi-rotary diecutter to have 15-20 metres of web in the machine. If you can’t access the first print in your converting machine, there is no point in having the first print good off your digital machine.”
The 36-year-old company, with 10 staff in Sydney and three sales and technical staff in Hong Kong, is a true pioneer. It developed the world’s first optical plate-mounting unit in 1980, the first totally gearless flexo press in 1995, and the first RFID label and tag converting machine in Australia in 1996. It was among the first adopters of servo drive technology for narrow-web converting.
In fact, ProPrint heard Bruce Mansell, Nick’s father, and Rapid pioneer, predict the rise of narrow-web technology at a LATMA event in 2003.
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