All Digital Printing

Lightning Labels leverages the capabilities of digital printing to meet the growing demands for fast-turnaround applications.

Even in tough economic times, there are always bright lights shining through. In the package-printing arena, one of these bright spots is digital printing. This new printing technology appears to be well past the critical-mass tipping point.

The number of package printers that are adding digital printing capabilities is increasing steadily. Many of the printers are using digital printing to augment their traditional capabilities in flexo, offset, or gravure printing. Some are taking a different approach and focusing entirely on digital printing.

One such company is Denver, Colo.-based Lightning Labels (www.lightninglabels.com). The company was founded in 2002 by Peter Renton, director of business development, as an all-digital label printer. Lightning Labels' founding as an all-digital printer was based on Renton's belief that very few label companies were focusing on short-run, 4-color process labels. He saw digital printing as a "perfect fit for short-run printing, with the ability to provide high-quality graphics with very quick production and product delivery," he says.

Renton started investigating available digital technology in 2001, and decided to invest in Indigo technology. (Note: Hewlett-Packard (HP, www.hp.com) acquired the Indigo business in the 2002 time frame and today it is HP Indigo.) "We chose Indigo because we felt its quality and overall capabilities were a good fit for our needs," he says. "We have never regretted that decision. We have only ever purchased HP Indigo presses; HP has been an excellent partner and we are committed to its technology."

Short runs, fast turnarounds

Lightning Labels operates from one facility in Denver with 24 employees. It operates two HP Indigo ws4500 digital presses, supported by a total of three finishing lines from both Rotoflex (www.rotoflex.com) and AB Graphic International (www.abgint.com).

According to Renton, the company puts all its efforts into the printing of pressure-sensitive labels for the short-run label market. "However, our target market is very broad," he reports. "We don't focus on just one or two industries. Examples of markets that we supply to include food, beverage, wine, promotional products, bath and beauty, candles, and nutraceuticals."

One expectation of short-run printing is the ability to turn jobs around fast. "Our standard turnaround on all jobs is three days from proof approval, and most jobs ship in just two days," notes Renton. "On average, we print around 200 different label jobs every day, and this lightning-fast turnaround is only made possible due to our unique mutuality, customer service philosophy."

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