Xeikon, an innovator in digital color printing technology, and Hybrid Software, specializing in software solutions for Order Lifecycle Management (OLM) in the graphic arts industry, and an Aura partner for Xeikon, announced today that they will demonstrate at Labelexpo Americas a Web2Label Production set-up created to fulfill an ever increasing market need to produce short run labels.

The demonstration will take place at Xeikon booth #6135, Hall F, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Chicago.

Setting up a well-chosen workflow enables label converters to automate and create a true Web2Label Production environment. This way they have the perfect answer for the demand to deliver high quality labels for the short runs of a limited number of products at an affordable price. The workflow is automated, with no need of human interaction to create the job or print run. Automation reduces the overhead costs, avoids human errors and minimizes the job turnaround time. The digital press' up time can be maximized which increases the overall productivity.

End-customers can place orders for various labels via the Internet, through Hybrid's Frontdesk OLM portal. After preflighting the incoming jobs, Hybrid's Facelift application groups the uploaded and approved labels according to size and substrate and sends JDF files without user intervention to the Xeikon X-800 digital front end. Jobs can be monitored during the complete production cycle. Visitors will see how the Xeikon X-800 drives a Xeikon 3300 digital press.

"Xeikon has long been a believer in the need for integrated solutions, and helping to deliver our customers end-to-end solutions that help growing their business," said Jeroen Van Bauwel, Xeikon's director of product management. "The partnership with Hybrid Software couldn't be better illustrated than with this application; a solution that fulfills the needs of a changing market's requirements."

Filip Carrein, Technical Director Hybrid Software adds: "By integrating the Hybrid Software Order Lifecycle Management System to the Xeikon output devices, we can streamline the administration, follow-up and order management for label production through the Xeikon 3000 Series. Label convertors face more and more short run jobs due to an escalation in SKU's because of strongly increased versioning. They simply have to minimize their overhead cost, so they need highly automated workflows."