The advantages of direct printing still need to be explained to all but a handful of companies. The main plus is that it offers significantly more scope for individualised and eye-catching design – the kind of small run, quick turnaround design that marketing campaigns and product launches need. Clients can also react swiftly to their own changes and emergent trends.
Altering labels for promotions, upgrades, updates and individualisation within ranges, is expensive and often cumbersome. Changing details for digital direct printing is easy and more affordable to effect, so direct printing makes it feasible to create small batch sizes with small print runs.
Digital direct printing also creates new options for designers. Haptics can be married to optics, for instance, and printing is possible on uneven surfaces. A picture template can be transformed simply and immediately into a printed image. And variable data like barcodes or best-before dates can also be easily integrated without any problems - as well as state-of-the-art individual-product tracking.
With Krones' DecoType direct printing system, print heights of up to 200 millimetres can be achieved using UV inks. In modularised, compact construction, the machine is suitable for empty plastic containers made of PET, PP or PE, either cylindrical or special-shaped. Krones is also planning a DecoType application for glass containers.
Integrated printing units with ink supply and automatic pushbutton adjustment facilitate change-overs. The pushbutton-controlled cleaning process, too, has been automated. Ink top-ups are seamless. Arc emitters also ensure reliable UV-drying of the printed containers.
DecoType also allows clients to print on container structures that current labelling methods did not. It means the end of overproduction of labels and label adhesive, and it reduces storage costs.
