An unusual production model: offset and digital
Founded in 1990, InForm Etiketten produces self-adhesive labels for B2B customers in a number of sectors: food, chemical and household products, industrial applications as well as wines, beers and spirits. The latter sector requires highly structured and haptic substrates as well as finishes with high added value, like hot foil embossing or screen printing.
With a roster of around 35 employees, the company is notable for its production tool. While many label converters call on both flexography and digital, InForm bases its model on offset and digital.
“In Germany, we are not your typical printer, as we combine digital and pure offset,” says Benjamin Rüdt von Collenberg, managing director of InForm Etiketten.
LX3000 for short-run label production
This approach is in line with market trends. After the financial crisis of 2008, print orders became fragmented and the variety of items grew exponentially. Benjamin R. von Collenberg highlights this market evolution by pointing to fruit juices: in previous years, there were just a few varieties, but today ranges can include 20 items or more. So a key concern is finding ways to profitably produce these small runs. In 2009, InForm therefore opted to acquire its first Xeikon digital press, a Xeikon 3300 with a print speed of 20 metres per minute, while also continuing to develop its offset machines.
In 2019, the company went a step further with a Xeikon CX3, which can print up to 30 metres a minute. Seven years later, that machine is still fully operational, but InForm is making plans for the next stage of its development, as new technologies find their way to market. The company faces a choice: continue with a system over which it has full control or invest in a new generation of technologies in order to progress.
Productivity and waste reduction over speed
The LX3000 is obviously eye-catching, thanks to a top print speed of 42 metres per minute. Yet the final decision revolved around another feature. “For us, productivity is more important than speed alone. In other words, the machine’s real availability to produce labels,” adds Benjamin R. von Collenberg.
This challenge is particularly evident in the wines and spirits sector, where substrates are costly and the printing process is often completed by finishes with high added value. For an order of 50 metres, profitability will quickly decrease if a job is rushed through and consumes a long roll of substrate. The colour management and control tools on the LX3000 have for instance been used to reduce the material necessary for the alignment and to more quickly achieve a marketable result. However, on long runs, the speed increase plays a significant role: a job measuring several thousand metres will directly benefit by shifting from 30 to 42 metres per minute.
Dry toner and food safety
Xeikon’s dry toner technology, which InForm has been using for over 16 years, also influenced the decision. Benjamin R. von Collenberg underlines technology’s food safety aspects and the advantage of ECO toner, made from recycled raw materials.
Given that the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) is now in force and circularity requirements are becoming stricter, Inform Etiketten’s Managing Director sees this evolution as an additional advantage. In his view, linking some of the recycled materials to food safety requirements is “a very strong argument”.
More substrates, two presses, one workflow
The LX3000 also extends the range of substrates for InForm: films, coated papers, paper with structure, and now thermal materials, which previously had to be produced in offset – with the associated preparation costs – even for a few thousand labels. Some substrates used in offset can also be used on a digital press without any additional pre-treatment steps. “If we need to work fast, we can switch from offset to digital and use the same roll without having to pre-treat it,” adds Benjamin R. von Collenberg.
Flexibility also extends to the two digital presses themselves. Data is prepared in a standardised way during prepress. When a job is more suitable for the LX3000, the team can switch over to the other RIP workflow without rebuilding the file or having to start from scratch with colour management.
“We can decide if a job is ideally suited to the LION, then send the data to the other RIP workflow and achieve the same result. That looks very promising,” he concludes.
For InForm, this continuity makes the two presses complementary in their capabilities. Jobs can be allocated according to workload, deadlines, and application specifications while maintaining consistent results.
A robust partnership since 2009
The decision to continue with Xeikon was not only based on technical aspects. Since InForm’s first digital investment in 2009, their relationship has grown around service, knowledge exchange and an increasingly detailed understanding of the customer’s production model.
“The technology is good, the product is good, and the cost structure is good. But there’s also knowledge sharing, business development, and strategic thinking: understanding what drives us and knowing how we can move forward,” says Benjamin R. von Collenberg, who adds: “We talk about B2B, but I would rather call it a human-to-human business model.”
As part of the evaluation process, InForm’s operators were also able to see the LX3000 running in a live production environment and exchange directly with the team using it. This gave them the opportunity to assess the system under real production conditions, including day-to-day improvements that are not necessarily visible in a brochure.
More capacity to support growth
In the next few years in particular, InForm is counting on the LX3000 for additional capacity to handle load fluctuations and urgent demands. The company also envisages new opportunities in wines and spirits, especially with silver toner. “That will generate more work and growth,” concludes Benjamin R. von Collenberg.
By calling on the Xeikon LX3000, InForm can stick faithfully to its model. So the company will be able to strengthen its unusual combination of offset and digital printing, which has guided its production for more than 15 years. In this way, it can increase capacity and flexibility, without deviating from its distinctive focus.
