Iwatsu launches digital press in Europe

Iwatsu launches digital press in Europe

Japan-based Iwatsu has launched its LabelMeister inkjet press into Europe with a new sales and support network, and distributed by Lintec Europe. Andy Thomas reports

Japanese company Iwatsu is to launch a UV inkjet digital press into the European market through one of its sales network partners. The press will be distributed by Lintec Europe B.V. with technical support from DG Press Services B.V..

Although Iwatsu has considerable experience in the wider print industry through its manufacture of reprographic equipment, this is the company’s first venture into the label market.

The EM-250A LabelMeister inkjet press – first shown in Europe at Labelexpo in Brussels last year - prints at up to 50 m/min at 600 x 600dpi, and at 25m/min at  600 x 1200 dpi (in the machine direction), with four selectable droplet sizes for smoother gradations. Repeat length is up to 2 meters and maximum image width 220mm, with zero gap continuous image printing.    The heads are all self-cleaning.

 The EM-250A press is 4-color CMYK but, a recent development has seen the addition of a White station, designated the EM-250W.  The EM-250A can be retrofitted with the White unit, opening up applications on aluminium foil and transparent films.

The EM-250W uses a combination of LED curing for ink fixing and UV lamp for final cure. As is usually the case with UV inkjet, no pre-coating of substrates is required. An in-line intermittent finishing unit - designed and developed together with Iwasaki Tekkok Co. Ltd – is optional, and the press can also print on pre-diecut label rolls for late stage versioning.

Iwatsu provides its own LabelMeister RIP, incorporating ICC profile color management per substrate, and Label Bijin workflow software for functions including bar code generation, imposition and die cut marks. The software can also calculate ink useage and cost per job.

Case study

L&L’s sister magazine Label Shimbun in Tokyo conducted an interesting interview (through editor Nakamura-san) with an early adopter of the EM-250A; pharma label converting specialist Kyoshinsha Co.

According to company president Teruhisa Kubo, average run lengths range from ‘several dozen to several thousand labels at most’, even within a longer 30 – 40,000 label order.

‘In the past our customers kept plenty of stock,’ says Teruhisa Kubo. ‘When we got a job for 100 labels we insisted that we must print a minimum of 1,000 labels. However, quantities gradually decreased and eventually they began asking us to deliver only the specified quantities they required.’  The company may print as many as 100 jobs per day, and most must be delivered in three days, down from an average of three weeks.

Most labels use 2-3 solid process colors and often include variable data such as lot number and variable barcode.

The LabelMeister press was selected because it could print on a wide range of materials including synthetic papers and because it came standard with the pre-diecut label printing function. ‘The original specification did not have this function, but the manufacturer developed the technology specially to support our production lines,’ says Kubo.

Full scale production commenced in October 2011 and a second machine was installed in March 2012.

Iwatsu background

Iwatsu Electric Co is a major manufacturer of telecoms equipment, test and measuring equipment and reprographic systems, with annual consolidated sales of US $309m and 1,621 employees. The company has 70 years of manufacturing and sales experience, 50 years of which have been in the printing industry, where the company has specialized in inkjet plate-making systems since 2004. The move to inkjet printing is therefore a natural extension of this business.

Pictured: The Iwatsu LabelMeister UV inkjet press with inline finishing

This article was published in Labels & Labeling issue 6, 2012

Andy Thomas

  • Strategic director