B2+ Digital Inkjet Press Brings New Opportunities

“Not only is it super durable, it’s instantly dry, which means we can move quickly into finishing operations like scoring and cutting,” he says. “Plus the colors are consistently dead-on. I’d say 75% of the Pantone book can be achieved within a Delta E of 3 or less, which is pretty amazing.” Delta E is a standard measurement, created by the International Commission on Illumination, that helps quantify the difference between a target color and the color that actually gets printed.

The carton used by Scottsdale, AZ-based Mental Mojo for a dozen 4-fl-oz bottles of its brain boost supplement is a good example of the kind of Typical of the short-run projects Spectrum can handle with its new digital press is this carton for a dozen 4-fl-oz bottles of a brain boost supplement.packaging Spectrum can produce with the Komori press. “They came back to us maybe five times with modifications to the design,” says Huizenga. “Each time we were able to produce just one or two sheets of 24-pt board for them so they could touch it and look at it and decide if it was really the carton they wanted. That kind of flexibility just isn’t possible with offset presses.”

Huizenga believes the IS29 will bring new business to the firm because most converters are reluctant to accept orders smaller than 5,000 cartons. For startups or smaller firms like Mental Mojo, 5,000 cartons is a huge commitment. By tapping Spectrum as a source for far smaller runs, companies like Mental Mojo have a chance to get launched and then grow. And once they gain some traction, they can stick with Spectrum for larger orders produced efficiently on an offset press. In all likelihood, they’ll also try a new product in small quantities in cartons that Spectrum can produce efficiently on the Komori digital press.

“The amount of packaging we’re doing now isn’t yet all that much higher than it was before the IS29 was installed, but we can produce packaging for a lot less money,” says Huizenga. “In the past if we were doing a modest run we’d have to go two-up on an offset press. And all those plates would have to be bought and all that extra substrate too. So I expect six months from now the percentage of our production that is packaging will be considerably higher.”