Rapid route to short run printing

StickyLabels.com has installed the UK’s first Rapid X1 label converting system using Memjet’s inkjet technology. Andy Thomas reports

The speed of the Memjet inkjet system caused a stir when it was first seen by L&L at Labelexpo Americas last September. StickyLabels.com has now had a press using the technology installed in the UK.

Although known as Sticky labels the original name of this converter is Vine Lodge Products. The company was started back in 1973 by the father of the current owner, Gideon Hall, who saw a gap in the market for supplying short runs of labels via mail order. Although a common concept now, it was a genuine innovation to spot this opportunity almost three decades ago.

The company started in the family home – from which the name comes – and operated from there for a number of years before moving to its current address. Gideon Hall now owns that house and is bringing up his family there.

Like father like son

Iit wasn’t long before Gideon spotted the potential of the Internet as a way of updating his father’s business model. He noticed that much of what was around was ‘somewhat lacking in user friendliness’, and stickylabels.com was born.

‘I knew that to be successful this had to be as easy for the customer to use as possible,’ says Gideon. ‘Our target market was effectively everyone who wanted labels no matter how big or small, and when you are aiming at such a wide range of customers you have to accept that a proportion of them will not be experts in either printing or labels. The site needs to be as easy for them as anyone else and we think that we have, as the computer techs say, created a good web experience for visitors to the site.’

Gideon’s search for a flexible short run label system led him to investigate the Memjet technology, and he settled on X1, the smaller of the two Rapid machines which incorporate this exciting technology.

The Rapid X1 and X2 machines can produce full color labels at speeds up to 18m/min. The Memjet technology allows both machines to deliver in excess of 70 million drops of ink per second through over 70,000 nozzles.

Gideon Hall worked with UK supplier Impression Technology Europe on the machine’s final configuration. ‘Although this machine looked ideal for economically producing small runs of full color labels, the print quality had to be right. We have a good reputation in the market and there was no way that I could allow that to be compromised. We look at quality just as much as speed so it had to tick all of the right boxes.’

Why did Gideon choose the X1 over conventional machinery? ‘Under normal circumstances, to be cost effective using industry standard methods of producing full color labels the production run would need to be between 10,000 and 15,000.  But because the X1 is basically an inkjet printer running off a standard PC, the viable figure drops to, one. The X1 works the same way as an office desktop printer and so the unit cost (per label cost) doesn’t really vary whether you produce one label or one thousand.’

The installation of the X1 has allowed Gideon to develop further the on-line side of the business, which can now accept a wide range of order sizes. ‘With the addition of the Rapid X1 to our production system we can now easily and quickly supply a very large proportion of the label market.’ To ensure the converter can stick to its 'within three days - but same day dispatch if you need it' pledge, large stocks of cutters and label stocks
are held. 

Pictured: (L-R) Roy Burton, MD of Impression Technology Europe and Gideon Hall, owner of StickyLabels.com

This article was published in L&L issue 2, 2011