Lotus Labels has invested in a Xeikon 3300 label press and a matched GM finishing line helped by a £200,000 funding package from HSBC.
The digital press replaces on of the company’s four flexo presses. Andreas Schillinger, managing director of the Eastbourne printer, says: “We were limited in what we could do while we only had flexo to offer customers. People are now more used to the flexibility that digital offers from their printers. They want to keep pace with version changes and changes to artwork that digital allows.”
The company was looking for a robust industrial solution that could fit in the middle of the factory, says Schillinger, former managing director of Muller Martini GB. “We wanted something that we could put in the factory without worrying if the environment was suitable for it.
“We have had a desktop machine for printing labels, but that was very limited and we needed industrial strength equipment.”
The 3300 is capable of running the ICE toner to expand the range of substrates that it can handle. The GM DC330 finishing line offers flood and spot varnishing, foil lamination and has a semi rotary die cutter.
The business plan envisages an increase in turnover from £1.28 million in 2015 to £1.35 million this year as a result of the investment. To date it has been a “tremendous success” says Schillinger. “We are getting more and more complicated work from existing clients that have been using us for flexo. If a job was digital we had to use other suppliers to run those jobs.”
The client base includes healthcare and food companies, supplying the aviation services sector based at Gatwick and Heathrow. “We are also working with Asian and African food companies,” he adds. “This allows us to offer a greater variety and flexibility with design and packaging.”
Designers, he says, are producing artwork for digital which “means that we have to take the file apart and make it suitable for flexo”.
Schillinger joined Lotus Labels in 2014 at the same time that the company became part of the Dynamic Systems Group comprising sister companies in Germany and Switzerland.
Lotus Labels has installed a Xeikon 3300 as its first production level digital press. It has replaced one of the four flexo presses at the Eastbourne label printer where former Muller Martini GB managing director Andreas Schillinger is in charge.
