Malone buys Action and turns to digital with Epson

Label Power owner James Malone has bought Melbourne-based Action Labels & Nameplates, and invested in its first digital press, installing a new Epson SurePress L-6034VW industrial UV label press.

Malone bought the company from Ann and Kay Whitehouse. He said, "We have been looking for Melbourne manufacturing base. Action has a 75 year heritage, it was a great opportunity." Label Power is based in Brisbane.

One of the first moves following the acquisition was taking the company into digital printing, with the new Epson SurePress.

Malone explained, “Action Labels has a good range of semi rotary and intermittent printing machinery that operate well, however the demand has been increasing for short runs of labels and multiple SKUs and conventional printing machinery is getting less competitive in today’s digital world. So we started looking for a solution and decided the Epson SurePress L-6034VW was ideal.”

Started in 1945 Action Labels & Nameplates has long been heralded for being inventive and forward thinking. Now 75 years later under Malone’s new ownership Action Labels & Nameplates is undergoing a digital transformation. Malone has kept on all eight staff, and added four more, as he takes the company into a new era.

For the digital press Malone said it was important to find a machine that not only could print on a wide range of substrates with durable and lightfast inks but could also print on many different widths of stock from 80mm up to 340mm.

He said, “After looking at many UV inkjet presses in the marketplace is was soon apparent that there is a lot of similarity amongst the various models. With so many UV Inkjet presses already installed in Australia we needed to find a UV Inkjet press that would make us stand out from the competition. That UV press is the Epson SurePress L-6034VW.”

Action Labels & Nameplates currently uses a combination of roll to roll letterpress and roll to roll screen printing machinery. Digital printing was done on smaller roll-to-roll inkjet and toner equipment. Malone has been watching UV inkjet develop in terms of quality and speed over the years and saw the opportunity where a UV LED inkjet solution would give Action Labels & Nameplates the advantage in the growing short-to-medium run durable label markets.

Malone continued, “The SurePress L-6034VW certainly fulfils our requirements and those of the market. It can print on stock widths from 80mm to 340mm wide, and the digital varnish station in the final station allows matt or gloss UV varnish effects to be created after CMYK or WCMYK printing.

Epson is a multi-billion-dollar turnover company so there is significant support and backing, it also designed and made the press from the ground up and makes its own inks and printheads. These are all big advantages for us.”

The Epson SurePress L-6034VW is a UV LED inkjet digital label press which the company says delivers high quality, productivity and durable labels. The press uses Epson’s own PrecisionCore printheads and comes standard with wide gamut CMYK, high opacity white and digital varnish inks, led curing, corona treater, web cleaner, ioniser, eye mark sensor and an additional UV curing lamp

Malone added, “The positive feedback of the high-quality output due to the colour pinning control and centre drum web handling platen has been great. Also the innovative digital varnish ink printed in one pass gives our brand owners the flexibility of either matte and gloss using spot varnishes to add high value and very appealing accents that lift the visual appearance of specific areas. As a result we are using the SurePress L-6034VW for CMYK printing and durable labels for the lucrative cosmetics, beer and wine markets.”

The Epson SurePress L-6034VW comes with an Adobe Illustrator plugin so it is almost as simple to print with as an office printer. A job is loaded into Adobe Illustrator then all pre-flight, imposition, VDP and colour management is handled by Epson’s Illustrator plug-in software and spot colours and media profiles are controlled by the easy to use touchscreen control panel on the press.

This ease of use is not lost on Malone who commented, “We are impressed by the level of engineering that has gone into the L-6034VW. The press is solidly built and has a zero-point reverse feature so little stock is wasted.

“Adding to Action Labels & Nameplates large range of diecutting, hot-foiling and screen-printing machinery, the SurePress L-6034VW provides the perfect digital engine to allow us to serve a wide range of industries including superfast turnaround trade printing of labels and tags.”

He concluded, “The value of having one supplier design and manufacture all the key technologies of a digital label press cannot be underestimated. This, combined with Epson’s excellent local service and support makes this purchase a no-brainer.”

Epson’s UV range of presses is expanding as the company furthers its commitment to providing a printer for all market sectors, needs and requirements. New in the UV range is the SurePress L-6534VW a press that uses Epson’s 600 x 1,200dpi PrecisionCore printheads and produces print speed modes of production mode 50 m/min, standard mode 30 m/min, and a 15 m/min high-density mode.