Who: PeterLynn
Aim: The Corby label printer wanted to push into digital printing in a bid to win more business in the cosmetics and beauty sector, as well as taking on additional print work and easing the pressure on its flexo presses
Spend: Undisclosed
What: Xeikon 3030 digital label press and Digicon Series 2
When: Summer 2012
Challenge
PeterLynn is a label printer that was established in 1985. It manufactures a range of products including custom roll labels, plain paper labels, tickets and tags. Markets include pharmaceutical, food, cosmetics and beauty.
The Corby-based business houses two Mark Andy flexo presses and four hot foil presses for finishing. “We have always had a full suite of equipment,” explains Vicky Waine, sales and marketing manager at PeterLynn. “However, we reached the point where the flexo presses were running more than capacity.” For PeterLynn the next step was to decide what form a new press would take – another flexo investment or would the firm take its first steps into digital print?
Strategy
The firm settled on digital thanks to the technology’s reduced set-up times. “The digital label sector continues to grow and has become an increasingly important part of the label industry as a whole,” says PeterLynn general manager James Lindsay, son of the company’s founder Peter Lindsay. “As a dynamic, growing business the investment in digital equipment at this point in time made great sense for us and the physical expansion into a second industrial unit was a necessary addition as space was becoming a limited factor.”
Digital was also the technology needed to help the company make further inroads into the cosmetics and beauty market. In addition, further finishing options would be needed.
Implementation
PeterLynn looked at several digital press manufacturers before opting for Xeikon and its 3030 machine. According to Waine, the supplier won because of its “wrap around support”. He explains: “We really liked them as they had a very good training package. This was important as we didn’t have a digital print background. Also, Xeikon’s costings were clear cut.”
The Xeikon 3030 digital press is a web-fed machine capable of printing at speeds of 9.6m per minute. The five-colour engine provides the standard four process colours plus the choice of spot colour, special security toner for anti-counterfeiting applications or a one-pass opaque white for the “no label” look on transparent material. Substrates covered include self-adhesive label stocks, paper, transparent and opaque foils. The Xeikon 3030’s food safe QA-I toner also opens up opportunities to food manufacturers.
In addition, the company bought a Digicon finishing station, which is capable of providing hot-foil, varnish, lamination and cold foiling.
“We already had hot foils to finish on but we needed the extra flexibility to varnish and add spot colours,” says Waine. “It gives us flexibility to meet the requirements of the cosmetics and beauty market, which is the area we’re looking to expand in.”
Installation ran smoothly with additional space created thanks to an adjacent business unit on the Willowbrook North Industry trading estate. “We had two weeks of training on the press and that left the guys feeling confident,” adds Waine.
Results
So far the company has been growing its short-run work and has made a difference in terms of efficiency – the 3030 has been running “all day, every day”.
“One digital run makes us more competitive and it’s just much quicker. We can turn around jobs in 24 to 48 hours and we’ve moved some work from flexo to digital seamlessly,” explains Waine.
PeterLynn is anticipating growth in the next 12 months thanks to the investment and, as Packaging News went to press, it was opening its doors to trade customers, showing its new production line. Another open day for customers is set to go ahead in March next year.
Xeikon director for segment marketing and business development Filip Weymans says: “The management at PeterLynn recognised the issues with regard to shrinking run lengths, meaning that digital offers the most economic production solution. The fact that plate production costs are immediately eliminated with digital makes a significant difference to the price of a few thousand full-colour labels.”
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