Femalabel boosts capacity with world’s first Xeikon 3030Plus

Femalabel has seen a drastic improvement in its production capabilities after installing the world’s first Xeikon 3030Plus digital press, alongside a 3300 model.

The installation of the world’s first 3030Plus model (pictured, top), launched at Drupa 2012, and a 3300 has doubled the printer's existing capacity and allowed it to keep pace with its continuously growing digital production of labels.

For several years, Femalabel worked with another elektrophotographic digital press combined with laser die-cutting to provide short runs of variable design labels. As the business grew, Femalabel replaced this set-up with equipment from Xeikon that allows the company to be more productive, without any compromise in quality.

With this new configuration, the company continues to build on its successful strategy of just-in-time production of high-quality labels in short run lengths. By producing more top-quality labels in less time, Femalabel will take its business to the next level of productivity and profitability.

Wim Feys, co-owner and technical manager at Femalabel , said: ‘Xeikon has demonstrated huge progress in recent years in terms of output quality and range of substrates; they’ve really closed the gap with competitors.

‘The Xeikon 3030Plus and Xeikon 3300 enable us to increase efficiency and flexibility, and at the same time reduce costs significantly.

‘Our capacity has increased with 300 percent. With the Xeikon digital presses, we are producing labels at a guaranteed minimum of 600 sq m per hour compared to previously 200 sq m per hour at best.’

Partnering with Xeikon has also created new market opportunities for Femalabel, added Filip Weymans, Xeikon director of segment marketing and business development for labels and packaging.

‘Because our systems use food-approved and odorless toners, we no longer need special lamination coatings on labels for food industry clients – and that’s a real cost-saving advantage,’ Weymans said.

Feys continued: ‘In the past few years as our business and client base have expanded, many of our clients came to prefer digital print quality versus that of our conventional flexo press.

‘At a certain point we also installed a UV offset press to handle the larger volumes of labels that required this level of quality. Now with our two new Xeikon presses, we can start to move jobs back from offset to digital again, because we can digitally print label run lengths of 2,000 or 3,000 metres more cost-efficiently than ever before.

‘We were also very impressed with the opacity the white toner provides in one pass using transparent substrates.’

Read more about Xeikon on labelsandlabeling.com