Digital-printing apps in action

What’s it really like to adopt and live with digital printing for your business? Yesterday, four label printer/converters at the TLMI Get Smart! technical conference offered the answer with real-life insights. Some of their comments:

What was the business strategy that led to your digital-printing need?

“Our customers wanted shorter runs and faster turnaround. It seemed like we would soon have to print stuff before they even asked for it. We needed to achieve lower costs and higher efficiencies to be competitive on a national basis.” —Joel Carmany, Consolidated Labels, Longwood, FL

“We began in 2002 as the first “digital-only” label printer focused only on the short-run market. We previously had no label-printing experience but knew that digital was a natural fit for short run.” —Peter Renton, Lightning Labels, Denver

“We were hoping to achieve ‘the perfect print world’ in our operations. A Click-to-Print idea.” —David Blatt, Color Ad Label, Winnipeg, Canada

What were your expectations and key learnings when implementing a digital-printing solution?

“Exercise due diligence when selecting your supplier. Prepress and finishing are bottlenecks in fast-turnaround workflow.” —Blatt

“We had to build an entire new magnetic-die library.  There should be no flexo mentality in running a digital press. It doesn’t matter is an operator has 20 years or three months of experience running a flexo press. They are equal when it comes to a digital press.” —Carmany

“We started with an EBI (ion deposition) system, moved to digital offset, then UV inkjet. The digital offset opened up new markets for us, but it has limited spot-color matching.” —Lori Campbell, The Label Printers, Aurora, IL

“We had to learn at first how to bring in business for digital, handle press downtime, develop new prepress systems, and especially how to set pricing.” —Renton

How were you able to integrate digital printing into your manufacturing?

“We started with an inexpensive tabletop model to gain digital experience. Then, we moved small-volume flexo work to digital to create a workflow. We hired a dedicated digital artist and digital-press operator and put them side-by-side.”  —Carmany

“UV inkjet handles a wider range of substrates and the print resolution and quality is higher but so is the cost of consumables. You need to control your expectations and adjust your mindset when doing digital printing.” —Campbell

“For sales, target the Brand Manager (not the label purchaser). Drive small accounts to a self-service utility and focus your direct sales on large accounts.” —Blatt

What solutions/upgrades does digital printing need in the future to keep it moving forward?

“The ability to upgrade equipment easily to keep it from becomign technically obsolete. And speeds of 200 fpm to make it practical to attach the diecutter to the press.” —Carmany

“Expect variable-data printing to be a major future trend. I’m not talking about serial-number labels. I’m talking about personalized labels. Look at Jones Soda, H.J. Heinz. There’s no reason for every label to be the same.” —Renton

“Web-to-print applications and customer self-service. Tighter integration inline with prepress, printing and finishing. 20- to 30-in.-wide webs and wider choice of substrates.” —Blatt

“Greater portability and color capabilities. More reliable proofing options. Longer repeats.” —Campbell

OK, so what’ll happen when everyone in the packaging industry has a digital press? How will converters differentiate themselves? The consensus: Service and how it’s delivered.

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