Label Printing: get fit for tomorrow's markets – today

Digital technology – a licence to print labels?

Digital label production is booming. To take advantage of that growth, enjoy digital's new benefits and keep your analogue production equipment profitable while transitioning with Konica Minolta's complementary approach to printing services.

Professionally printed labels are big business nowadays. Very big. Industries need to identify and differentiate their products and brands, custom labels can be used in exciting new ways, and the volume of printed square metres in the sector has nearly doubled in recent years. Even in this online era, label design plays a hugely important part in acceptance of a product. The label or sticker on a bottle or item of packaging reflects its brand's message and identity.

The latest figures from the marketing research institute Smithers Pira show that the volume of printed square metres in this sector rose from 4 billion in 2014 to 7 billion in 2017.

What is label printing?

It would be impossible today for the worlds of retail, commerce, industry or distribution to operate without labels. They can be found with multi-coloured illustrations on almost everything that we buy in high street retail stores, pharmacies, DIY shops, and even out-of-town hypermarkets and garden centres – whether products are pre-packed in bottles, tubs, jars, pots, trays or other types of containers, shrink-wrapped or even affixed directly to items as diverse as lawnmowers, tennis rackets, clothing or hardware.

Labels are an essential medium that can be used to identify and help to market all kinds of goods, as well as provide essential consumer or legislative information such as weight or volume, supplier or manufacturer contact details, ingredients or contents lists and maybe storage, handling, healthy eating, usage or safety information.

In addition to this, almost all labels nowadays carry a barcode – the patterns of black and white lines that are scanned at automated checkouts – to identify and price items on the customer's till slip. Barcoded labels of various kinds are also used in the manufacturing, handling, shipping and distribution sectors for applications as diverse as assembly and factory automation, in parts and components identification, and the field of tracking and traceability throughout the supply chain.

New label innovations in recent years have also seen the growth of special types of labels capable of interacting with mobile phones to access websites, provide further consumer information, enter competitions, play games or become part of social networks. Some labels are even uniquely variable or personalised.

In short, labels have become an essential component of everyday modern life in one form or another. No surprise then, that labels of all kinds are one of the fastest growing sectors in the printing industry, along with flexible packaging, averaging around 4-6% per annum growth worldwide for at least the last 30 years (current growth is estimated at 4.7%), and almost always achieving growth above GDP. On a global basis, labels are produced by a highly specialised niche printing industry sector which currently generates over $60 billion in turnover.

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Digital label presses

The label printing sector has grown to such an extent that annual installations of digital label presses are now close to 30% of all narrow-web press installations worldwide, with over 3,000 digital label presses installed worldwide in the label industry at the end of 2015.

Looking ahead, digital label presses are forecast to make-up close to 40% or more of all annual narrow-web press installations by 2020.

Against this backdrop, the overall value of digitally printed label jobs nowadays is viewed as far greater than the printed cost alone. Industry estimates indicate that although digital label printing is currently only about 3% to 5% of all printed pressure-sensitive label jobs by volume, it makes up some 15% to 18% or more of all print jobs by value.

The many benefits of this growing sector include:

Seamless workflow

A seamless workflow has become one of the essentials of successful digital label production. It provides the basis for minimizing errors and paperwork, speeds up response times, and provides continually up-dated manufacturing and customer information, as well as bringing down lead times.

Cost efficiencies

Compared to conventional label printing, the digital process does not use printing plates, or have any platemaking materials, chemicals, processes or time requirement, saving you money.

Production benefits

For the brand owner, the opportunity to reduce or eliminate label warehousing, reduce time to market, and improve supply chain efficiencies can be a compelling reason to turn to digital label production. The possibility of just-in-time production, short-run proofing and test marketing of labels is also of great interest.

Marketing opportunities

New added value and marketing opportunities for brand owners – indeed almost any size business ‒ have become a real focus for label users in today's ever-competitive environment. There are many examples of where digital printing solutions have provided the possibility to easily produce multiple versions or variations, variable design images, personalized labels, mass customization, new promotional opportunities and even regional, seasonal or special event labels. For the digital label producer these marketing opportunities offer the potential to add value and enhance profitability.

Environment and sustainability

There is little doubt that the environment and sustainability have become important issues. By producing exact quantities rather than a percentage of 'overs', digital printing reduces print wastage. Unlike other printing processes, there are also no chemicals, water, or plate making materials used with digital printing.

Brand security

A relatively new, but growing area for digital design and printing with the latest software solutions is to incorporate security design backgrounds and special features, variable images, micro text, anti-copy features and much more.

Track and trace

The fact that digital labels can be printed individually means printers can produce sequentially numbered or coded labels, create hidden codes matched to visible codes, and provide changing codes that can be used with smartphone technology – all offering new possibilities for track and trace label solutions.

New opportunities

Digital label printing also brings in more business for the converter's conventional printing presses, while creating new opportunities in the shorter run and niche unsupported film markets for sleeves and flexibles. Around 14% of label converters that have invested in digital presses now also produce profitable shorter-run, mid- to narrow-web flexible packaging – sachets, pouches, tubes, pot lids, wrappers, bags and flexibles – for customers who started out on labels alone.

Technology of the future meets benefits of the present

All the features you need (and one or two more)

Do I need to change to digital? Find out with Digital1234

For conventional analogue label converters looking to invest for the first time in digital label printing, there is more behind the decision than simply buying a new printing press or process. It requires a great deal of evaluation and thought beforehand, including decisions about people, sales and marketing, pre-press capabilities and colour management at each individual company.

Identify, Assess, Justify and Implement

Investing in digital label printing means stepping back and taking a critical look at the way you do business and how you liaise throughout your work chain and with your customers. For busy label printers and converters looking to invest in digital printing technologies for the first time, the challenge is often to know what questions to ask themselves, who in the company should be involved in the decision-making process, and what the implications for other departments, or even customers, might be.

To assist companies in their thinking and decision-making, Konica Minolta has designed the Digital1234 assessment guide. This business development programme is a business-based questionnaire covering a range of crucial business topics; using a simple and visual 'traffic light' system, the assessment helps you quickly identify the areas of your business that could benefit from switching to digital by exploring each individual business opportunity. It focuses on the specific needs of label converters and companies involved in the graphic arts fields.

By examining area such as your existing business, how you might generate new business by investing in digital, your employees' understanding of digital printing, and management of the digital production environment, the Digital1234 four-step plan – Identify, Assess, Justify and Implement – will tell you for sure whether the time is right for your organisation to switch to digital.


Those four steps are: