Cotton Plus Printing has invested in Colordyne Technologies 3600 Series Retrofit platform to meet the needs of the expanding custom label industry. Partnered with Kansas-based Styers Equipment Company, Colordyne and Styers installed the 3600 Series Retrofit to help solidify Cotton Plus as a digital printer.

Anticipating a growing need in the market for short run, cost efficient, custom label print jobs, Cotton Plus Printing decided to retrofit its Mark Andy 2200 10-inch, 6-color flexographic press to better meet current client needs while expanding its business into the new digital market.

“Short runs are becoming more common as the custom label and tag printing market grows,” says Mike Lundahl, president at Cotton Plus Printing. “Digital printing presses lend themselves to this market extremely well, and Colordyne Technologies solutions are undoubtedly the best options when it comes to high-print quality, fast job production and low equipment cost.”

According to Lundahl, he is now able to hand clients proofs within 15 minutes of receiving a file. “Changes to a proof can be made easily and without cost to the customer, nor do we have to worry about making and storing new plates to accommodate any changes,” he said.

Digital retrofit upgrades are helping converters in a transitioning market. Label converters like Cotton Plus can integrate full-color digital inkjet printing to existing flexographic presses, maximizing the 3600 Series to profitably augment and grow current CMYK printing activities. Cotton Plus has been assisted with variable data integration, full process CMYK plus spot color and state-of-the-art color management software.

“One of the most ideal features of Colordyne’s retrofit is that we were able to avoid setup expenses by printing small jobs digitally while adding full color variable data inline with our traditional analog processes,” Lundahl explains. “Retrofitting our Mark Andy 2200 10-inch, 6-color flexographic press gives us the flexibility we needed to make short runs more profitable. It also opened up new markets that were previously inaccessible to us because of their specialized needs.

“The major barrier to breaking into these small run clients was the combination of cost, waste and time constraints,” adds Lundahl. “We consistently encountered clients that were frustrated with the traditional printing industry, and knew that if we had a way to make short runs a viable solution, we could break into a whole new market. Having installed the 3600 Series Retrofit in October 2014, working with Colordyne has been and continues to be an excellent experience. They are knowledgeable, helpful and always willing to troubleshoot right alongside our technicians. We couldn’t be happier.”