The term “small narrow-web press” sounds almost like a contradiction in terms. Web presses use continuous rolls of paper and other substrates to run uninterrupted at high speeds, and they have always been employed to print very high volumes in the shortest possible time. Newspapers come to mind. So why a small narrow web? The primary application for these presses is labels and packaging.
Though labels and packaging are specialized markets within the printing industry, press manufacturers in the field are quick to point out that demand for labels and packaging enjoys at least one major advantage over general commercial work. While marketing directors and advertisers are divvying up their budgets between electronic and printed media, no matter which channels they use for promotion, all of their products need some type of wrapper. In fact, the competitive pressures in the retail space are leading the drive for ever more elaborate label and package decoration to capture the consumer’s attention. As manufacturers of consumer goods strive to differentiate their products, labels and packaging are likely to command a larger share of the marketing budget rather than a smaller one.
Traditionally, small narrow web printing has been dominated by flexographic technologies, and production is often done by the converters who make product containers and wrappers. For them, printing is only one step in the larger process of package production and can combine various processes like offset, flexo, and rotary screen printing, with finishing options such as die-cutting and foil stamping in “hybrid” production lines. However, as digital processes for both prepress and printing have been improved and expanded, they are being introduced into the label and packaging segment. After all, on-demand production, economical short-run “versioning”, and variable data printing (VDP) can be applied to labels for wine, ketchup, and pharmaceuticals as well as to marketing collateral and business documents. The relative ease-of-operation of digital printing technologies also has made the label and packaging market more accessible to commercial printers, who might develop low-volume digital label and package printing as a value-added or niche product offering.
New applications for digital
Colour digital printing technologies were introduced only about15 years ago and were initially for broad commercial printing applications rather than for labels and packaging. The Xeikon colour digital press was the first digital web press on the market, and the Xeikon 330 also was among the first digitally-based narrow web presses designed for label and package printing. Introduced a couple years ago by Punch Graphix, headquartered in the Netherlands and the UK, the Xeikon 330 offers a maximum web width of 330 mm (13”) and prints up to five colours—including opaque white—on label stock, paper, and synthetic media up to 250 gsm. The Xeikon 330 is available complete with inline postpress options for varnishing, laminating, cutting, slitting, matrix stripping, and for re-reeling finished labels.
The Indigo colour digital press from Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, Calif., was another pioneer in the colour digital printing field, with the earliest models for sheetfed printing. The Indigo ws4500 is a third-generation colour digital web press developed specifically for label and packaging applications. It provides a web width of 330 mm (13”) and uses Hewlett Packard’s Electroink to print in as many as seven colours, including Pantone PMS and Pantone’s new Goe colours. The system accepts substrates ranging from paper label stocks to film in thicknesses from 12 to 350 microns (0.47 to13.8 mils). With “near-line priming” the press will run a broader range of substrates, including shrink-sleeve and flexible packaging films. A variety of compatible finishing options, key to producing labels and packaging, are available from AB Graphic International, Rotoflex, SMAG, Delta Industrial, DCM, and Karlville.
Though the ws4500 is capable of volume production, Don Briley, North American category manager for industrial products at Hewlett Packard, estimates that 60% to 65% of the work produced on the ws4500 is in volumes of less than 50,000 due to customer demand for shorter runs for versioning and/or “private label” branding. This type of VDP production is perhaps the most attractive capability of digital printing generally and requires no physical retooling of the press, plate changeovers, or makeready, other than perhaps changing the substrate. Another selling point for digital label production, Briley notes, is digital’s ability to precisely match the colours produced by other printing processes, like offset or flexo. For consumer products, “The label itself is the product differentiation,” he says. “Label printing is not just a niche market anymore.”
Non-traditional sources
Digital press manufacturers are not the only companies offering digital narrow web presses for label and packaging. EFI, best known for its Fiery colour controllers, acquired the Jetrion inkjet division from ink manufacturer Flint Group in 2006. EFI/Jetrion, based in Ypsilanti, Michigan, now offers a range of industrial inkjet print systems, including the Jetrion Series 4000, a small narrow web press for printing UV inkjet labels and packaging. Imaging widths are 100 mm and 200 mm (4” and 8”), with webs two inches wider than the image size. Substrates can range from paper and film to tag and specialty stocks. The press uses Jetrion UV4000 inks in four or six colours—cyan, magenta, yellow, black, orange, and green—and produces what EFI/Jetrion describes as “near-photographic” image quality at 900 dpi.
Sean Skelly, director of marketing for EFI/Jetrion, says the company is targeting two groups of potential buyers for the Series 4000: converters who already have flexo printing capabilities and have been outsourcing shorter run work, and printers who do no flexo printing at all, but want to get into the label market. The Jetrion 4000 utilizes EFI’s Fiery XF production RIP to link to prepress systems.
Another unusual source for printing presses is Sun Chemical Corp., with North American headquarters in Parsippany, N.J. At both Graph Expo 2007 and LabelExpo Europe in Brussels, Sun exhibited the new SolarJet, a UV inkjet printer built in partnership with Colorado-based Imaging Technology International. The SolarJet incorporates Xaar 760 printheads to produce images at 900 x 900 dpi using Sun’s SolarDot pigmented UV inks, formulated to deliver reliable print on a range of substrates.
Stefan Slembrouck, business manager of digital print solutions at Sun Chemical Digital states: “We have designed the SolarJet to fill a specific gap in the narrow-web labels market. SolarJet offers printers an economically viable solution for print runs of 10,000 labels or fewer, freeing up their flexo presses for the high volume jobs. It also has the added benefit of being able to print variable data, such as text and barcodes….It is a complementary technology that exploits the strengths of digital printing, while bridging the gap in conventional printing processes.”
The usual suspects
For decades, Danish company Nilpeter A/S has been a leading global manufacturer of small narrow web presses for flexo, offset, and gravure label and packaging production. Nilpeter features modular presses with interchangeable components for using several of these print processes in one production line, as well as for laminating, die-cutting, foil stamping, embossing, punching and sheeting. This year at LabelExpo, Nilpeter unveiled its new Caslon line of digital inkjet printing presses, which employ prepress imaging technologies from UK-based FFEI along with the Xaar 101 drop-on-demand printhead to print four-colour process text and images on a wide variety of substr
ates. Caslon presses are available as modular units that can be integrated with Nilpeter’s flexo press lines, or they can run as stand-alone roll-to-roll systems. The presses are being introduced first in 330 mm (13”) and 420 mm (16”) web widths, with 508 mm (20”) and 559 mm (22”) web widths to follow.
“Our objective with the design was to provide a solution which can augment current pressroom capabilities, rather than need a separate printing environment and production workflow, which is required by most competitive digital solutions,” notes Lars Eriksen, president and CEO of Nilpeter.
Dozens of other manufacturers offer narrow-web flexo presses, including Mark Andy of St. Louis, Missouri, ETI Converting Equipment, Boucherville, Quebec, and others, many based in Europe. As stated earlier, however, these manufacturers sell primarily to the converting market and, while they offer a very broad range of capabilities, flexo printing itself is a very different process from the offset and digital printing usually available from commercial shops.
Narrow web offset
Compared to the number of flexo and even newer digital narrow web processes available, the offset printing process seems under-represented. Muller Martini, best known for highly sophisticated finishing systems, offers the Alprinta narrow web offset press, launched at LabelExpo in Brussels in 2005. Available in web widths of either 520 mm (20.5”) or 740 mm (29-1/8”) and running at speeds of 457 m/min (1,500 ft/min), the Alprinta is primarily a “half-web” press designed for high-volume production of anything from publications to direct mail to marketing materials. Muller Martini also recommends the press for labels and packaging because the system can print on a wide range of substrates including films, and offers a size variable insert system with plate and blanket cylinders that can be changed quickly, without the use of tools and without breaking the web. The Alprinta can be ordered with as many as 12 print units, allowing for many options in terms of printing process and spot colours, varnishes, metallics, and more.
New to North America this year are narrow web offset presses from German manufacturer Edelmann Graphics. These are now available here through Matik North America, West Hartford, Conn., a distributor that also handles flexo presses and related converting equipment from more than a dozen manufacturers. The Edelmann presses include the model V52 with a 520 mm (15.5”) web width, and model V72 with a 720 mm (30”) web width. Both have print repeats from 16” to 48” and will print on a range of substrates—film, PS, PP clear box, aluminum foil, and paper—in thicknesses from 18 to 650 microns (0.7 to 26 mil). Because Edelmann presses are offset, they can be used to produce almost any number of end products, labels and packaging as well as books and directories, direct mail, marketing materials, etc.
Two smaller Edelmann narrow webs also are available, the Web Print 39 (520 mm/15.5”) web width, and the EVO Print with a 483 mm (19”) width. Both have print repeats of 11” to 25”.
The designation “small narrow web” refers to a certain size and type of press, one that is most often used for labels and packaging. However, these presses are offered for every printing technology, or for use in hybrid print production lines, and can be used for producing even the fanciest, finished end products. Printers interested in expanding their capabilities and their markets will find many suppliers of small narrow web presses and complementary equipment who can provide standard as well as custom presses or whole production lines to fulfill just about any customer’s specifications.