The total number of narrow-web digital colour label presses installed still stands at less than 1,000 - 985 to be exact. However, all of these machines produced 10.8 billion labels in 2008. Quite a number considering that print runs are getting shorter and variable data, as well as personalised messages on labels, are part of the market trends this industry is experiencing.
In an analysis of job types, HP says the digitally produced run length of 65% of full-colour digital label jobs is less than 10,000, and 95% of full-colour digital label jobs are a run length of under 50,000. Within the conventional analogue printing arena, those numbers are changing to 57% of jobs being under a run length of 25,000, and 71% of jobs are under 50,000 in length.
Within the digital printing arena in the narrow webfed industry, HP Indigo presses have a market share of 73%, and is, therefore, one of the leading three label press suppliers (conventional and digital). The company expects that, while the overall growth in labels will be around 4%, digital will take a share of 45% of this growth. Driven by new developments and better value propositions of digital label press makers, crossover points will change and new digital prints will be created. Digitally printed labels will also deconstruct/reconstruct the value chain as well as enable further environmental considerations.
While the financial crisis and economy have put a dent in the growth of all printing-related markets, they have also had an effect on the purchase behaviour of print service providers and their customers. Optimisation of processes, brand owners holding lower inventories, faster movement of goods, faster reaction to demands, as well as overall cost reduction and differentiation are some of the drivers that accelerate the transformation towards digital printing.
In addition, as HP Indigo general manager Alon Bar-Shany explained, customer-driven innovation due to changes, variations, tests, creations according to customers' wishes and expectations, and the prints thereof, are far better executed on digital equipment that does not need long set-up times and different processes.
At the same time, companies are looking at environmental responsibility. "Environmental respect does not prevent economic development, but economic development must be ecologically viable," said Alon Bar-Shany.
"With the new HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press, HP has designed a digital value proposition to the label market that is "designed to capture mainstream production from conventional in the labels and packaging industry. It empowers the label converter to pursue profitable growth with higher-volume, high-quality label and packaging production printing," said Tomer Levin, Labels and Packaging PM at HP Indigo.
Machine specs
And indeed, the new press, with a repeat length format of 317x980mm and thereby featuring higher productivity, speeds of up to 30m/min (four-colour printing) and 60m/ min (two-colour printing), covers the market for up to 80% of jobs currently printed on flexographic presses. In other words, this means that 80% of all label jobs are under 120,000 labels. Its media range covers substrates from 12- to 450-micron thickness, making it a viable solution for label and shrink sleeve printers as well as folding carton printers.
The first North American company to install the press, Innovative Labeling Solutions (ILS) in Hamilton, Ohio, is substantially growing its business by offering higher volume, high-quality labels, flexible packaging and folding cartons that enable all levels of consumer product manufacturers to affordably and effectively market their brands.
"Because it is more cost-effective than flexo on such a wide range of work, the number of companies that can take advantage of digital has gone up four- or five-fold with the WS6000", said ILS president and chief executive Jay Dollries. "The press not only gives all brand owners the ability to increase sell-through rates with different, compelling graphics for each flavour or variety of a product, it enables mid-tier firms to compete more effectively on the shelf with photographic quality labels they might otherwise find too expensive to print using flexography."