subject: Efficient and Cost Effective Digital Label Press Finishing [print this page] Doing the finishing work on a print job is an art all in and of itself. A wide web print job may be a dozen images wide and needs to be die cut in order to be used. Lamination lends a professional gloss to brochures and other materials. In fact many ink jet jobs from a digital label press must be laminated in order to be useful. A digital press does not finish its work in the sense that it does laminate, die cut, or strip. Thus another machine needs to be used for this part of the operation.
Digital presses are an excellent choice for short print runs. There is less setup time and less waste than with a rotary press. Also a digital press can vary the content of its labels. For example, a product may require more of different labeling from state to state and different languages if different countries. Pharmaceutical products, herbicides, pesticides, and other products may require extensive labeling with variations making the job ideal for a digital press. But, now that the job is printed we need a finishing solution.
Doing finishing on an existing press requires that the press be able to re-register the web from the job on the digital press. This makes the job difficult on older presses. Thus, there are a number of modular solutions that take the digital label press job and do the finishing. However, these presses cannot do finishing on multilayer (extended content) labels. They also take up floor space when not in use. What is a printer to do?
A cost effective and efficient solution is to take a look back at an existing flexo press and upgrade it with a state of the art infeed and re-register system. Such is available with the Servo 3000 Digital Infeed + Re-register system made by Rotary Technologies. The Servo 3000 is an easily attached web press accessory. Using the Servo 3000 assisted press avoids the problem of having paid for a modular finishing machine that stands idle when not in use for finishing work. Using the Servo 3000 also makes an existing press more flexible, more efficient, and reduces waste both on make ready and during operation.
The Servo 3000 was invented to upgrade flexo and other rotary presses. Its function in doing finishing print work for a digital press is a by product of its re-registration system that can take jobs from other presses to add colors, make corrections, or to do finishing. By using a Servo 3000 assisted press for finishing the printer gains an improved flexo press in the bargain. This press will print on a wider variety of substrates and at full press speed. It will have 0.0025" resolution at full speed. It will also be able to finish multilayer label print jobs from a digital press and that is something that the modular machines cannot do.
For the printer planning to use a digital label press for short run label printing the Servo 3000 accessory may well be the best choice for digital print finishing.
Efficient and Cost Effective Digital Label Press Finishing
