Page 67 - Print21 Nov-Dec 2019

Labels
Local printers visit monster
Euro label plant
look were also determining factors. The flexo plant operates mainly in the personal care sector. He said, “The complexity of the artwork for instance may mean we print the job on the HP Indigo rather than the flexo presses.”
Gehrke said the plant is highly automated, saying the timeline for order receipt to be printed could be 30 seconds, and said that repeat jobs, which comprised 75 per cent of the work, had no human touchpoints.
He said, “We have programmes that check the graphics are ok to print, if they are it is a seamless operation, all handled by the system.”
The HP Indigo 20000, with its 750cm web width, often runs three 220cm across labels on a single reel. Gehrke says, “The HP Indigo 20000s have high output as they are stable platforms. They feed into wide web ABG converters.”
“We have programmes that check the graphicsareoktoprint– iftheyareitisa seamless operation, all handled by the system.” – Roger Gehrke, vice president operations, All4Labels Digital
Mark Daws, Currie
Group Director – Labels
& Packaging ANZ, took
a dozen Aussie and Kiwi label printers to the world’s biggest digital reel-to-reel label plant All4Labels, as part of Labelexpo. Wayne
products such as car batteries, oil labels and fluids that will be sold all over Europe. Other major brands it prints for include the likes of Procter & Gamble.
Roger Gehrke, executive vice president at the plant, spent the morning with the Aussie and Kiwi printers, explaining how the plant operated, how it had grown, and the market sectors it operates in. He said, “All4Labels has built its digital division in less than 20 years to become a European powerhouse by providing exactly what the market demands, high quality labels in short time frames.”
Mark Daws said, “Thanks to Roger for showing us around. This plant is a real eye opener to see what can be achieved with HP Indigo presses. The level of automation is what keeps this plant operating at such a high level, and its growth is testament to the quality of print it produces.”
All4Labels benefits from some Europe-wide contracts, which mean the same job is printed in multiple languages – ideal for digital printing. Gehrke also told his guests that brands were increasingly wanting multiple SKUs as their own marketing became more targeted, which he said also helps the drive to digital.
He also said run length was not the sole determining factor whether a job went to digital or to one of the company’s 30 flexo presses at a sister plant five kilometres up the road, saying that ease of set-up and the
TRobinson was there.
he Hamburg-based All4Labels has some 14 HP Indigo presses running in its factory, 17 converting units
from ABG, and the Kurz Jetliner embellishing system – all of which are supplied in Australia and New Zealand by Currie Group.
Some of the run lengths are so long it takes two or three weeks
of non-stop printing to complete the job. The company pumps out between 30 and 50 tonnes of labelstock into despatch each day of the week.
All4Labels has a trio of HP Indigo 20000 wide web printers, with the other presses the HP Indigo 6800 and 6900 models. The business has revenue in excess of €30m. It runs 24 hours a day, five days a week, with overtime on weekends. It has some 800 active customers.
The vast majority of work is labels, with around 40 per cent of the business in the automative sector
– the company produces labels for
Visiting All4Labels: Aussie and Kiwi printers with Mark Daws (centre blue shirt) at the Hamburg site
The All4Labels digital plant produces between 5000 and 6000 jobs a month, which in volume terms is around eight to nine million labels a month, with just two prepress staff on per shift.
The printers from Australia
and New Zealand were more than impressed with the factory tour. While the market size here will ensure local label printers are unlikely to reach the same size as All4Labels, which serves a market of 350 million consumers, the lessons in automation and integration were well appreciated. 21
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