Foto: privat What will the future bring? Put together, the key challenge today for any label printer is to decide what his new label printing press investment will be this year, next year or the year after. Will it be another conventional UV flexo analogue press? Or maybe an offset or combin-ation process press? Some converters are perhaps still deciding whether to go digital. If so, will the investment be in toner or inkjet technologies? In the past, the decision, which press to invest in was perhaps rather simpler. Today there are even more factors to be considered – even with conventional analogue press technology. A press’s environmental footprint and energy consumption might be an important factor. So might the press colour gamut and the number of colours or print stations avail-able on the press. What added-value finishing options are available? What inspection or control technology is re-quired on the press? What kind of output speed is demanded for the type of work being produced? How long does the press require to changeover from one job to another? Does the converter want to print other products as well as labels, such as flexible packaging, tube laminates, folding cartons, sachets etc. These factors may well influence press investment. Each of the main press manufacturers undoubtedly has their own technology variations and solutions they wish to promote and offer. When it comes to investing in digital there are various other factors to be considered as well as just investment in a press. Digital printing is all about new ways of working. It’s about enhanced colour management. It’s about making decisions whether to go conventional or digital as late as possible. What throughput of different jobs can be handled each day without getting bogged down in administration and paperwork? All these factors are likely to require more sophis-ticated Management Information Systems (MIS). Yet another key investment decision to be made. Then there is the additional challenge with digital of what dpi resolution to go for; does the work produced need a white ink in one of the printing heads; does the press have an extended colour gamut. Press running speeds between all the digital label press technologies also vary quite considerably. How important is speed with many short-run job changes? Go digital and the converter also needs to decide whether to invest in in-line or off-line finishing. If in-line, every job change may mean a press stop to change cutting dies. If there are multiple short run jobs to be produced the die-changes can take up a considerable part of the press day and offer reduced press running time. That means reduced output and potentially lower profitability. Off-line finishing can mean that one finishing line can handle the output of several digital presses, so maximizing press production time. Another finishing in-vestment option for the Mike Fairley WEIGHING & LABELLING label converter might be laser die-cutting; a higher-cost investment, but offering significant benefits where multiple short runs are required each day. Used with say, inkjet, laser cutting technology combined with inkjet (or Xeikon) technology where there is no fixed repeat length, offers the exciting potential of batching jobs across or along the web for maximum economics and performance. Looking back, it seems that more changes in print-ing technology, particularly for self-adhesive label printing processes and technologies, have occurred over the past 50 years than at any other period in the last 400 years. Even today, change in label printing and converting technology is still continu-ing to take place. Mike Fairley, founder of Labels & Labeling and director of strategic deve-lopment for the Tarsus Label and Packaging Group (www.finat.com) F WIEGEN & AUSZEICHNEN GLM-I evo Mit bis zu 200 Packungen pro Minute, ist der neue modulare und vollautomatische GLM-I evo eine der schnellsten Etikettier-maschinen der Welt. Eine integrierte Quali-tätskontrolle und die perfekt abgestimmte Plug-In™-Label-Funktionalität machen ihn somit einzigartig. www.bizerba.com Weitere Informationen Hohe Leistung und eine breite Palette von Lösungen und Ausstattungsvarianten. THE FUTURE OF PERFORMANCE GLM-I evo Bizerba Interactive Willkommen in der Open World of Bizerba Erleben Sie die nächste Generation der industriellen Wäge- und Datentechnik in allen Stufen Ihrer Prozesskette.
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