Lightning Labels installs new HP Indigo WS4500 Press

Lightning Labels has announced the successful installation of its new digital label press. The new WS4500 press from HP Indigo, launched at Labelexpo last September, is now in production at Lightning Labels’ headquarters in Denver.

With two HP-Indigo WS2000 presses, Lightning Labels is known for its short run label printing, but now with the increased production speed of the WS4500 press it will also be able to take on slightly larger runs. The WS4500 press can print high resolution labels at up to 100 feet a minute – the fastest speed of any digital label press available today.  Lightning Labels is keeping one of the WS2000’s and trading the other one in one the new WS4500.

Steve Smith, the president of Lightning Labels, said there were several reasons for upgrading to the new press. ‘The WS4500 not only has faster speeds, the print quality is far better than the WS2000. Even though most of our customers only want short runs, print quality is always important,’ said Smith. ‘Also the fast ink replacement technology on the WS4500 will allow us to easily do spot colors, something many of our customers will appreciate.

‘We already have one of the fastest turnarounds in the industry. With the WS4500 running in tandem with our existing WS2000 press, we will be able to be even more responsive to our customers needs. It will effectively enable us to double our capacity and still produce the fast turnaround our customers expect.’

Lightning Labels was founded by Peter Renton in 2002, with a mission to focus on short run labels – a segment of the label market that no one had focused on up until then. ‘There are a huge number of companies who want to order just 500 or 1,000 labels, but until recently these people have been ignored,’ said Renton. ‘The beauty of digital printing is that setup is quick and easy, which makes it economical to do runs as small as 500 labels. You no longer have to order 10,000 labels to get a decent unit price.’