Polish label printer Etilab has upgraded to a Xeikon 3300 label toner press and invested in a new DC350 advanced finishing line with colour control software to speed up delivery times.

Etilab, founded in 2003, made the decision to double the print speed of its Xeikon 3030 label press, with a resolution of 1200dpi using dry toner electrophotography to print in five colours, to keep up with the volume of work at its production site in Żory.

A new DC350 advanced finishing line was also installed, giving Etilab larger scope for producing highly embellished digital labels.

The colours on the Xeikon 3300 are interchangeable so there is the option to print in orange, green, or special colours. The press can print on standard raw materials without primer, and due to the full rotation image transfer, there is no limit on the repeat length.

For food applications, dry toners have to comply with a number of standards. They are also environmentally friendly due to the absence of odours, VOCs, solvent emissions, and lightfast.

As part of the expansion, Etilab acquired the Xeikon Colour Services 2.0 software suite to ensure colour predictability. The cloud-based solution delivers automatic colour control on the fly by using a built-in spectrophotometer to maximise profitability.

The XCS Pro software enables Etilab to guarantee accurate brand colours, save on waste during production, and eliminate the risk of jobs being rejected due to colour variations.

The company has significantly invested over the years to create self-adhesive labels for a wide range of customers, ranging from smaller local companies to global corporations in the construction, FMGG and cosmetics industries across Poland and Germany.

President of the management board at Etilab, Sylwia Dudek, said, ‘Being a small company, we can respond dynamically to our clients’ needs and wishes.

‘We invest in great solutions to improve quality and productivity, while maintaining comfort and safety at work. The first Xeikon press we bought four years ago helped us enter the market with technologically advanced labels, printed on metallised film. The additional digital white colour further allowed us to achieve interesting tonal effects, such as gold or partly shimmering graphic elements.’

Xeikon sales manager Michał Kuczkowski said, ‘Etilab provides its customers with products that are often small and contain tiny text elements, which can be tricky to print. Dry toner printing using the Xeikon 3300 is perfect for this purpose and also allows the use of structured raw materials, such as those that are popular in the wine and spirits segment.’

The DC350 finishing line features a hot foil unit, with register and foil saver systems, for decorations and embossing. The line is also equipped with a highly accurate flatbed screen module, which can produce value-adding tactile effects including Braille. Setups and changeovers have been optimised with SmartSlit and SmartLoad functionalities which automatically position up to 16 slitting knives and load the die-cutting plates, to save on time and ensure precise registration.

Ms Dudek added, ‘Our technical capabilities have increased significantly; and we now can offer state-of-the-art labels using new and interesting substrates such as silver foil, transparent foil, and structured wine materials. Thanks to the Xeikon printing press and its sophisticated software, we can also perform personalised printing – each label can be unique, and everything is done in a single run through the press.

‘Our latest achievement on the DC350 line, which was delivered by Xeikon, is the application of raised varnish, which allows us to add warning triangles and Braille inline, as a single-pass production process. One of the main reasons for investing in this machine was to improve the efficiency of warning triangle application on labels, which in the past was done as a separate process using a special applicator. This was very inefficient and costly, making it difficult to respond to the time pressures from customers.’