Color Labels On Demand: Pack Expo 2012

Friday, November 2, 2012

Pack Expo 2012

This week, I attended Pack Expo (http://www.packexpo.com/pei2012/public/MainHall.aspx?ID=1266) at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL. During the show, I had some experiences and saw some technology that you may find of interest.

In their booth, Epson had running the TM-C3400, the new TM-C3400 LT (scheduled release for November) and the soon to be released, GP-C831. This product family was the same as shown at Label Expo: http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/09/label-expo-1-epson-family.html.

While working the booth, I spoke to representatives from an estimated 40 to 50 companies. From this group, I was surprised to hear how many of these companies needed to comply with the GHS Initiative. (If you don’t know GHS, check out my earlier blog: http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-h-is-ghs-opportunity.html). It appears many companies are facing the requirement to produce on-demand labels for chemicals with various color pictograms and icons. Including on this list are companies you may not expect: Nutrition (i.e. ascorbic acid) and Adhesives (check out my post on Dymax; http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/08/complex-yet-elegant-ghs-label-solution.html.

To produce these labels for drums, Epson showed the GP-C831 using Kimdura Labels.

You may have seen my earlier post on obtaining the BS5609 certification; http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/03/bs5609-is-no-bs.html.

If you have customers who are chemical manufacturers or who use chemicals in their products, be sure to ask, “Do you need to comply to the GHS initiative?” If yes, ask “what are you plans to comply with this initiative?” I believe you may find an opportunity to help your customers meet these requirements.

Outside of the Epson booth, I did see three relatively new items. First, Quick Label Systems was showing their new Kiaro Label printer. http://www.quicklabel.com/products-services/label-printers/color/kiaro.html. This 8” wide label printer prints at 1200 dpi resolution at speeds up to 8” per second. It costs approximately $10,000.

In the booth, QLS was showing this device printing prime labels with 100% coverage.

I understand this printer uses a printhead from Canon; similar to the label printers from KD Digital (www.swiftcolor.com). As QLS sells direct, most resellers will not have the opportunity to sell this printer. In addition, most AIDC resellers do not sell to many of the customers that print prime labels: printers, print shops, etc.

Second, I saw for the first time a prototype printer from Affinia (http://www.afinia.com/l-801-label-printer) a division of Microboards (www.microboards.com). This company is using a printhead from Memjet. To learn more about Memjet, check out my previous post: http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/09/label-expo-2-more-merrier.html.

This printer is 8.5” wide and prints at 12”/second at a resolution up to 1,600 x 1,600. As I understand, Microboards plans to have this approximately $10,000 printer available next spring. One interesting point, it will cost about $1,000 to fill this printer with 1.25 liters of ink; WOW! According to Afinia, 1.25 liters should produce approximately 35,000, 4” x 6” labels. Again, the printer from Afinia was producing prime labels: