Deliver What You Promise

Adding a digital press to its manufacturing business has helped Traco Manufacturing augment its position in shrink film printing.

October 2009 By Chris Mc Loone

multipage

The honest approach helps Traco retain its employees, adds Palica. “It’s very easy to hold onto people because at a lot of other companies our employees used to work for, they’ve been told to say certain things or try to cover up for other people. In our company, there is no such thing.” Palica’s company “fesses up” to the mistakes, and lets customers know what to expect. “We found that customers, as long as they know what’s going on, can deal with some adversity that arises unexpectedly,” he asserts. “It’s the unknowns or surprises that people don’t like. And, we just don’t surprise people. If anything, we try to under promise and over deliver.”

Combined with technology

Traco’s foray into digital printing didn’t take the normal path. Often, digital printing is embraced by a flexographic or offset printer, according to Gary Whitehead, print production specialist at Traco. The company knew it wanted to go digital to satisfy a variety of customer requirements, including just-in-time printing, regional versioning, or the ability to test-market a variety of shrink sleeve labels without printing massive quantities. “We looked at other digital presses, and they didn’t have the ability to print on shrink films,” says Palica. Based on that alone, the company opted to go with an HP Indigo ws4500.

Quick turnaround is the key to all of the above. “We found that we had a large customer base that needed a product just-in-time, didn’t forecast properly, were late in ordering, or had somebody pushing them for a product that needed to be turned quicker than most presses could do,” he says. “The Indigo press filled that niche for us because we can turn a job in 24 hours if we have to.” Palica claims the makeready on the press from job to job can be less than 5 minutes. “So we can do a job for a different customer, with a completely different set of artwork, with less than 5 minutes of setup between them. We can do anywhere from a single impression, if they are looking to do prototypes, all the way up to 40,000 impressions.”

The deciding factor, though, was the ability to print on shrink film. “Most of the digital presses out there are using heat to fuse the ink or toner to the substrate, and we couldn’t do that because of our film’s shrink properties,” says Whitehead.

Shrink, through and through

Shrink film is what Traco has specialized in since its inception. So, it should come as no surprise that Palica claims when you put a pressure-sensitive labeled product next to a product with a printed shrink label, the consumer will almost always choose the product with the printed shrink label. “The ability to show-off 360 degrees of high-definition, digital-quality graphics is unmatched in the industry.”

Purchasing the digital press has simply augmented what Traco can offer any customer in terms of printed shrink sleeves. “I think right now, what this press does very well for us is allow customers to try things out without investing a lot of money in plates and prepress costs,” adds Palica. “We can take it from the artwork stage and transfer it to a shrinkable substrate to fit any shape of container. Traco can also provide the sleeves as roll stock for use on automatic application equipment or as single cutbands for manual application.”

Digital’s on the move

Both Whitehead and Palica agree—the print quality of the end products coming off their HP Indigo press is as good or better than rotogravure. “I think it’s better than gravure when you compare them side-by-side,” says Palica. “The quality is unmatched. Gravure and flexo just can’t match the registration detail and process-color quality [of] this press.”

Digital printing has made believers out of Palica and Traco because of its surge in quality. “Most people don’t look at the printed graphics through a loupe and pay attention to that much detail or look at the registration, but we do,” Palica says. “When you look at the differences, it’s obvious that HP Indigo’s capabilities are unmatched out there right now.” pP

• MORE ON
• DIGITAL PRINTING