Inkjet Printer Boosts Personalisation Print

Seattle-based Label manufacturer, Labels West has installed an On Demand variable data inkjet printer from Domino Amjet.

Seattle-based Label manufacturer, Labels West has installed an On Demand variable data inkjet printer from Domino Amjet.

The purchase was made to provide increased edge to the company's personalised printing operations, whilst also opening up new market opportunities.

John Shanley, the owner and managing director of 50 staff strong Labels West, made the decision to choose Domino as his supplier, after reviewing the company's products alongside two other industry suppliers.

Explained Shanley: "It was only recently that we decided to increase our capability by enhancing our current VDP operations.

Having looked at the equipment out there, the Domino On Demand beats the competition hands-down, both in terms of speed and print quality." Shanley subsequently visited Domino Amjet at a trade-show and signed the order on the stand.

Launched following what Domino referred to as exhaustive independent validation testing, the On Demand comprises estimating, pre-press, proofing and printing modules.

The print system allows the user to add variable data to a job and, at the same time, save time and set up costs by allowing pre-press operators to design, layout and proof the job long before it reaches final print production claimed Domino.

Installed at the company's 22,000 square foot facility, the On Demand machine allows Labels West, which is now in its second generation of ownership, to expand its product range in to areas that were previously difficult to access.

Shanley commented: "Our VDP work would have previously been managed off-line.

While this is OK for certain types of work, it limits the scale of applications and types of customer that we can serve.

Via in-line printing on the On Demand, we can expand more into higher-end personalisation print for applications like direct mail and promotional giveaways.

Importantly, we save time by changing a three-step printing process to a more efficient and fast one-step process.

Off-line VDP requires the substrate to be on a continuous roll or fast folding stack and not in single pieces.

We would need to run it on a roll on the press, take it off to for the variable printing, then run it through a third machine to separate it into single pieces.

With Domino's system mounted on the press, we can do it in one process." Another major benefit, said Shanley, was the printer's UV curing system.

That provides Labels West with instantly dry print on any substrate, enabling customer jobs to be turned around much more quickly said Domino.

"The faster we can print, the faster we can get our product to market and the Domino solution was the fastest of all the options we looked at.

Its user-friendly software also makes it easy to operate, which allows us to print quickly and at a high quality, so it's very commercially viable," added Shanley.

Labels West serves a number of national customers, including the likes of Microsoft and Nintendo, as well as many consumer products companies in the cosmetics, food and pharmaceuticals sectors.

Labels West is now able to grow existing business by providing new applications for clients to better target their customers and increase response rates through improved personalisation on promotional pieces.

It has, according to Shanley, enhanced the company's all-round flexibility.

"We can actually laminate in-line and in the press, so if necessary, we are able to bury printed text or numbers underneath layers.

From a flexibility point of view, I expect the On Demand to open up new business opportunities, that we aren't even aware of yet.".

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