The global label show held in Brussels last week was dominated by developments in digital label printing technology, with more than 50 digital or hybrid digital presses on the show floor, and UV inkjet the big story.
In the major developments Heidelberg launched the Gallus DCS 340, a co-developed press between itself, its 100 per cent owned subsidiary Gallus, and Fujifilm, with whom Heidelberg is also developing a B1 inkjet sheetfed press to be launched at drupa. The Gallus DCS-340 will be the first Gallus press to be sold through Heidelberg sales channels. The press uses Fujifilm UV inkjet.
Conventional label heavyweights Mark Andy, Nilpeter and Omet launched hybrid press with flexo and digital UV inkjet.
In the former’s case it is the unambiguously named Digital Series. This combines six-colour UV inkjet, coating, and flexo printing. The Nilpeter hybrid is the Panorama which has five-colour UV inkjet combined with flexo. The Omet XFlex X6D uses piezo inkjet heads from Kyocera.
Among the other major digital UV inkjet label players EFI, Epson and Screen were all showing their latest models the EFI Jetrion, Epson SurePress L-4030 and Screen Truepress Jet L350UV.
Other major developments at the show include Xeikon which is showing a completely new Fusion concept, which prints a white with inkjet before printing with a Xeikon digital engine printing dry toner. Xeikon’s marketing director Filip Weymans says hybrid digital and flexo presses are not what the market needs.
Market leader in digital labels is HP Indigo, supplied here by the Currie Group, and which had a sizeable stand and was celebrating its 1,000th WS6000 series digital label press. HP says it has 600 customers in 67 countries, with WS6000 installations doubling in the past two years. An Italian label printer installed the 1,000th device, adding a WS6800 to its four existing HP Indigo presses.
|
During LabelExpo the Label Industry Global Awards were unveiled. More than 500 guests gathered at the prestigious Label Industry Global Awards ceremony in Brussels to find out which of the 17 finalist companies would be walking away with a much coveted industry gong. The 12th annual awards event was held at Brussels Expo as part of Labelexpo Europe 2015. Kurt Walker, Finat’s former president was presented with the much esteemed R Stanton Avery Lifetime Achievement Award. Sponsored by Avery Dennison, the award is given to an individual who has made a substantial and key contribution to the label industry over a minimum of 25 years. Kurt received the award in recognition of his work with Finat and in driving innovation and best practice throughout the international label community. Kurt joins the industry’s echelons with previous winners including Suzanne Zaccone of GSI Technologies, Tomas Rink of Ritrama, RotoMetric’s Steve Lee, Helmut Schreiner, Nilpeter’s Lars Eriksen and Flexcon’s Neil McDonough. HP Indigo was revealed as the winner of the Award for Innovation (for companies with more than 300 employees), sponsored by Flint Group Narrow Web. HP Indigo won the gong for its work in developing its HP SmartStream Mosaic software. Started by a request from Coca-Cola Israel to create a unique variable product with shelf appeal following the success of the Share a Coke customised name campaign on Coke bottles, HP Indigo has delivered the ability to create millions of images and designs on labels and packaging from seed patterns using an innovative graphics algorithm. The Award for Innovation (for companies with up to 300 employees), sponsored by Flint Group Narrow Web went to joint recipients GEW and Lake Image Systems. GEW impressed the judges with its RHINO electronic power supply which has been developed to enable the lowest possible operating cost for a UV-curing system, operating at 95 per cent energy efficiency to provide an extremely low energy consumption and environmental footprint the lowest carbon footprint and the lowest utility bill. Lake Image Systems was honored for developing MaxScan, its latest addition to the Discovery MultiScan family. Based on contact scanning technology its MaxScan provides key benefits over traditional line scan camera technology, such as uniform 600dpi inspection resolution and virtually no angular variation, to provide labelconverters with tools to accurately detect print defects without the need for expensive additional rollers, re-designed web paths or complex optical assemblies. Lintec was announced as the winner of the Award for Sustainability, sponsored by Xeikon. Lintec has developed a new label facestock, KP5000, which uses the world’s highest percentage (80 per cent) of recycled PET pellets. The new face material, which has physical features equivalent to virgin PET films and has a lower production cost than other recycled materials, is produced from mechanically recycled PET bottles as the raw material. Mike Fairley, chair of the judges commented: “Choosing winners from such an impressive list of companies was always going to be difficult and all of our winners and finalists truly deserve our utmost admiration and congratulations. The awards are designed to showcase the depth and best of talent and achievement across the global label industry and all of this year’s entrants demonstrated enormous innovation, best practice and inspiring work. The awards go some way towards shining a light on the significant dedication, commitment and excellence going on each and every day in this exciting and dynamic sector.” Judges for this year’s awards, under the chairmanship of Mike Fairley were: Thomas Hagmaier, president of Finat, Andy Thomas, group managing editor of Labels & Labeling, Armin Karl Geiger, editor of NarrowWebTech, Steve Katz, editor of Label & Narrow Web and Anthony White, label industry consultant. |
Comment below to have your say on this story.
If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.
Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter
