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Xeikon Café on Packaging Innovations puts the spotlights on Self-Adhesive Label Production

Extensive educational program completed with customer kohlpharma to inform visitors about the benefits of digital label production.

image Xeikon and its Aura Partners are hosting a Xeikon Café on Packaging Innovations to demonstrate label printers as well as print buyers how digital production could drive and improve their business. Taking place May 20 to 22 in Belgium, the event will highlight game-changing innovations in digital production and showcase the complete range of Xeikon's label and packaging application suites. One of the suites Xeikon will highlight is the Self-Adhesive Label Suite.

"From the myriad of product decoration techniques available, self-adhesive labels are the most commonly used as they offer the highest flexibility to meet market needs," explains Filip Weymans, Xeikon’s Director of Segment Marketing Labels & Packaging, “Self-adhesive labels are available in a wide range of substrates, colors and adhesives and they are compatible with a variety of printing processes and finishing techniques. They will stick to most materials and can be applied at the very last moment, just before the products are put on the shelves. That's why self-adhesive labels are used in many different industries, such as food, beverages, health & beauty, household and pharmaceuticals, and for industrial applications in general. While these applications each have specific requirements in terms of food compatibility, substrate range, lightfastness, use of variable data and brand protection features, they all require uncompromising quality and cost-effective short to medium runs. In addition, market trends such as globalization, increasing product variety, shortening product life cycles and just-in-time inventory policies are forcing label printers and converters to accommodate even shorter runs and faster turnaround times."

Xeikon and its Aura Partners make it stick

Digital printing is capable of meeting these market requirements while maintaining profitability. By nature it offers unlimited variability. Not only is it uniquely suited to the production of multi-version labels, the absence of set-up costs makes it also ideal for cost-effective short to medium runs. And because nowadays digital printing can meet the highest quality standards, it is a great complement to flexo, letter press and offset printing, while opening up a wealth of new business opportunities. Having developed solutions for self-adhesive label printing since 1996, Xeikon plays a leading role in the label and packaging market. Its digital printing technology has several unique advantages in terms of format flexibility, cost, print quality, productivity, color accuracy and consistency, lightfastness, food safety and brand protection. As a result, the Xeikon 3000 Series presses, which were specifically developed for label and packaging applications, are perfectly suited for self-adhesive label printing.

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In close collaboration with its Aura Partners, Xeikon developed the Self-Adhesive Label Suite, an integrated solution to print and convert self-adhesive labels. Like any of the four applications suites, the Self-Adhesive Label Suite is centered on a Xeikon 3000 Series press, complemented with four supporting components: (1) software, (2) print media, (3) consumables and (4) pre-and post-printing equipment.

Four live demonstrations

The Xeikon Café will showcase four live demonstrations of self-adhesive label applications:

§ A Xeikon 3000 Series press, equipped with CMYK and security toner incorporating taggant components and integrated with an inline DCoat and a laser die-cutting unit, will be printing labels of various shapes and sizes on 3M self-adhesive label stock certified for the pharmaceutical industry. This set-up will also show the power of Vectorizor, an add-on for Xeikon’s digital front-end, that drives the laser die-cutter. By enabling the die-cutting of different jobs in one pass, without interruption, it truly supports fully automated label production.

§ Labels pre-printed on structured wine label material from Raflatac will be die-cut on AB Graphic’s Digicon label converting line that will also include several embellishment features such as embossing, hot foil and raised varnish.

§ Grafisk Machinery will demonstrate another wine and spirits label application with pre-printed stock that will be finished on a stand-alone hot foil stamping and embossing unit.

§ The fourth live demonstration, booklet and leaflet label printing, will run on a Xeikon 8000 Series duplex press. While this Series was specially developed for the document printing market, it's also beneficial for specific label and packaging applications. Agrochemical booklets will be duplex-printed on 70 gsm coated paper. Pharmaceutical leaflets will be duplex-printed on 40 gsm uncoated paper. The prints will be reconditioned using Xeikon’s inline web-finishing module, cut and delivered to a stacker. These booklets and leaflets can be converted into self-adhesive booklet and leaflet labels, samples of which will be available on display.

There will also be demonstrations of the various software tools included in the Self-Adhesive Label Suite: Vectorizor, VariLane and Xeikon ColorControl. Next to the live demonstrations and displays, Aura Partners will describe their contributions to the Self-Adhesive Label Suite in detail during several technical seminars, with plenty of opportunity to ask questions.

Meet the Customer: kohlpharma

Xeikon is pleased to announce the presence its successful customer kohlpharma, offering visitors to the event the opportunity to find out first-hand about experiences on digital label production.

kohlpharma GmbH (www.kohlpharma.com) is one of Europe’s leading importers of pharmaceuticals. Based in Germany, the company buys original branded drugs from multinational pharmaceutical companies in Europe, imports them into Germany and repackages them for the local German market. Due to the nature of its business model, the demand for labels is rather volatile. In order to meet this demand as flexibly and as efficiently as possible, kohlpharma installed a digital production workflow consisting of a Xeikon 3300, with inline DCoat and laser die-cutting unit – the exact same set-up will be demonstrated at the event. The digital production line has been integrated within the company’s ERP system that submits print orders to the press. This digital production workflow has enabled kohlpharma to better manage its costs by only printing what is necessary, in the most flexible and efficient way possible.

For Weymans, the presence of customers is the icing on the cake: “Nothing beats listing to and exchanging ideas with someone who knows from personal experience what it is like to move into digital production and turning it into a success. This event will provide visitors with any information they might possibly need to understand how digital production could also work for them.”

About the Xeikon Café on Packaging Innovations – easy and free registration

The Xeikon Café will be held at Xeikon’s production site in Lier, Belgium. It will run from May 20 till May 22, with basically the same program each day so participants can choose the date that best suits them. Attendance is free but registration is required online at www.xeikoncafe.com.

The Xeikon Café is hosted in collaboration with the following Xeikon Aura Partners, who will all attend the event: 3M, AB Graphic International, ACTEGA Terra, Advanced Track & Trace, Argos Solutions, Bograma, CERM, CHILI Publish, Diamond Photofoil, Grafisk Maskinfabrik, Highcon, Hybrid Software, Iggesund, Kama, Label Traxx, Meech International, Michelman, OneVision, Rietstack, RotoMetrics, Schober Technologies, Siliconature, Stora Enso, Squid Inks, ThermoFlexX, Treofan, Tronics and UPM Raflatac.

About the Xeikon 3000 Series

The Xeikon 3000 Series comprises five simplex presses, differing in maximum printing speed and imaging width. They have been developed with the requirements of label printers and converters in mind:

§ All presses are full rotary with variable repeat length and always print at top speed, regardless of the number of colors used. Labels of different dimensions can be printed in one and the same run, without any adjustment to the press, thereby maximizing productivity.

§ Depending on the model, the maximum imaging width is up to 508 mm. The larger width increases the scope of applications as well as productivity.

§ Dry toner technology enables printing on most conventional label substrates without any pretreatment. This helps save time and money and allows easy integration into traditional production environments.

§ True 1200 dpi combined with four-bit variable-dot density offers the image quality the market has come to expect, while automated quality control ensures perfect color registration and maintains color accuracy and consistency throughout print runs as well as between jobs and across presses. This resolution also makes it possible to print fine details, enabling the addition of bar codes and security features, such as microtext.

§ Application-tuned QA-I toner and ICE, the variant for heat-sensitive label stock, have been developed for label applications that place high demands on food safety and lightfastness. They meet FDA standards for food label packaging applications and offer a high degree of lightfastness.

§ When printing labels on transparent or metallic media on a Xeikon press, one pass is all it takes to produce a perfectly opaque white base layer, offering a better opacity than 'flexo white'.

§ All Xeikon presses come with the X-800 digital front-end, combining prepress, data processing and press operation functionality. It comes with several add-ons especially developed for self-adhesive label production, such as VariLane enabling the printing of labels with different SKUs and different sizes in the same run, and Vectorizor, for the creation of die-cut profiles and the driving of a laser die-cutter. Integrated into the X-800 are all the necessary tools to efficiently implement color management, ensuring consistent and reproducible results. The X-800 further offers seamless integration and connectivity with any market-leading PDF, design and production workflows. As a result, it enables the implementation of fully integrated self-adhesive label production workflows.

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