UK-based label printing specialist, Vale Labels, has become the first company in the UK to offer HP’s powerful HP Indigo 6900. The new HP digital press will speed up the company’s digital portfolio and attract new business with even faster deadlines.
This installation of the HP Indigo 6900 takes the company into its next period of growth; allowing it to drive unmatched quality, productivity and versatility. The move is designed to speed up production time and maintain excellent relationships with customers.
A family-managed independent business, Vale Labels specialises in digital printing and the production of self-adhesive labels for companies of all kinds, in a range of sectors. Having purchased their first HP Indigo press over a decade ago, Vale Labels is now one of HP’s longest standing customers in the UK.
After a period of rapid growth, the company stepped into digital printing with HP, installing its first HP press, an HP WS2000, in the early 2000s. A bold move for the business, it proved to be a profitable one. It allowed Vale Labels to satisfy growing customer demand for smaller orders with shorter lead times, as well as meet the needs of new customers wanting to create high quality labels in flexible batches - reducing the need for placing large, less economical orders.
By offering smaller orders, Vale’s digital portfolio enabled customers to take less risk during tough financial times. This meant that despite market contraction Vale Labels continued to grow. Demand grew and Vale Labels’ CEO, John Riches, took the decision to upgrade to an HP Indigo 4500 to increase volume production and vary the service array. An HP Indigo 6800 later replaced the HP Indigo 4500, further increasing capacity.
Riches said: “The new HP Indigo 6900, with its expanded capabilities, has allowed us to offer even more choice to our ever-increasing customer base. The increased machine speed creates us spare capacity coupled with colour consistency and automated quality controls has allowed us the confidence, and opportunity, to take on a greater variety of projects whilst maintaining our incredibly high standards.”
The HP Indigo 6900 Digital Press, announced earlier this year, enables printing of any label, at any run-length, in a simpler, more productive and profitable way. Its unmatched versatility offers unique solutions allowing converters to produce any narrow format label, flexible packaging, sleeve, IML, wrap-around labels or folding cartons job, with easy and quick changeovers.
