In today’s fast-changing label market, agility is essential in meeting brand owners’ demands for rapid turnarounds, shorter run lengths and excellent quality. But fierce competition, a shortage of experienced staff and rising costs challenge label printers. To remain competitive, adopting digitalized and automated solutions is no longer optional – it’s a necessity.

Facing the challenges
A major pain point is brand color consistency across different printing technologies and applications, along with the flexibility to produce high-end labels and demanding applications, such as shrink sleeves and multi-layer constructions. Another is the increasing emphasis on sustainability, which means lowering waste, reducing energy consumption and using new eco-friendly materials.

In digital, the industry is solving these challenges by moving towards highly automated inline processes with ‘All-in-One’ workflows gaining ground. These advanced integrated solutions can produce ready-to-ship labels in one pass with less waste, while being operated by just one person.

However, flexo remains the primary technology for labels in the short to medium term. Like digital, narrow-mid web flexo presses are being optimized with automation and digitalization technology to improve efficiency and minimize waste regardless of the operator’s skills.

oneECG: extended color gamut printing
Addressing the color consistency issue, oneECG is BOBST’s proprietary solution for extended color gamut printing. Through the digitalization of color information, converters can ensure highest color repeatability between jobs and between flexo and digital, faster and more efficiently.

The implementation of oneECG in inline flexo streamlines operations and improves sustainability. In combination with automatic job change, flexo machines like the BOBST MASTER M6 become not digital, but highly digitalized, improving productivity by as much as 67%. oneECG also reduces setup waste by up to 65%, while lowering energy and ink consumption.

DIGITAL MASTER series: All-in-One production
The transition to All-in-One manufacturing – with digital and flexo printing, embellishment, die-cutting and quality control on the same machine – is accelerating. This is driven by the need to deliver high quality results, quickly, with less waste and at competitive costs.

Configurable with multiple modules, BOBST DIGITAL MASTER series gives label printers the capability to produce a much wider variety of superior quality products. By eliminating idle time between processes and reducing complexity, the DIGITAL MASTER series also ensures faster turnaround, speeding up time-to-market.

Combining multiple processes also reduces the need for additional equipment, such as offline embellishment, and the number of operators, which lowers costs, simplifies the workflow and optimizes the factory floor.

ACCUCHECK: next-level inspection
Offering full control, BOBST ACCUCHECK 100% inline inspection is unique due to its close integration with the press software. This is only possible because all the modules, including the DPU, inspection, calibration, and press software, have been developed in-house. Time-consuming processes, such as uniformity and color-to-color calibration, can now be performed in a matter of minutes.

ACCUCHECK is the first system on the market that automatically sets up every job and synchronizes with the job queue, meaning output quality is evaluated based on objective parameters. The system also supports the use of less experienced operators allowing productivity to be increased, while needing fewer people.

BOBST Connect: closed-loop workflows
In summary, BOBST is focused on the development of automated, digitalized and connected solutions. The ultimate aim is to provide the highest ease-of-operation by leveraging a closed loop workflow infrastructure through BOBST Connect, the cloud-based platform created for a data-driven world.

BOBST Connect drives connectivity between machines, digitalization of processes, and automation of workflows, in real-time. Label printers can view OEE trends, track job progress, and monitor trends over time – crucial information for optimizing productivity, improving machine performance, and eliminating waste.

Increasingly, labels will be produced in a single pass and machines will be connected through digital workflows. BOBST is leading this paradigm shift with inline flexo, digital and All-in-One presses, designed to ensure that customers are ahead of the curve, able to adapt to the evolving market needs with confidence.

Discover the full portfolio of inline flexo, digital & All-in-One solutions, and configure your press: https://configurator.bobst.com/