Today, New York Label & Box Works has announced the official launch of Sticker Buzz, an online service providing stickers, labels, and packaging for short-run online buyers. This launch culminates from almost a year of market research and development, and testing.

Although the Sticker Buzz "division" is a brand new venture, it has the unique advantage of being the beneficiary of over 140 years of printing experience. There is a wealth of printing knowledge accumulated by New York Label & Box Works (established in 1878) that can be transferred for the benefit of Sticker Buzz customers.

"The inspiration for this new service came from our customers" stated Steven Haedrich, President of New York Label and Box Works. "We have a rich history of providing value-added packaging for clients in the most efficient manner. But our systems and equipment were designed for larger press runs in the millions. And while we always strive to accommodate our customers' needs, small requests were, quite frankly, not cost-effective for our customers or us. We wanted to wait for the right technology solutions to be able to offer shorter-runs at a below-market cost."

Haedrich assembled a team to investigate equipment and materials that would accomplish that aim, and they decided on a hybrid printing solution. This choice not only allows the customer to benefit from the variable nature and low-cost features of digital, such as plateless technology and quick setup but additionally, reap the value-added benefits of analog printing such as foiling, special laminates, back-slitting, and much more. Their equipment choice also allows the company to provide more economical and environmentally-sound material alternatives, such as BOPP, to the customer, instead of the commonly used vinyl.

Sticker Buzz enlisted the services of Engagelogic, a NY-based engineering and design studio known for its' branding prowess and first-class development process. Engagelogic was able to deliver a user-friendly, standards-compliant front-end e-commerce platform to complement the branded print collateral and overall fresh "look and feel" for the startup. Engagelogic was also tasked to support the company's efforts in terms of social marketing and customer relationship strategies.

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Sticker Buzz is a service of New York Label and Box Works, a privately-owned printer located in the US. Established in 1878, NYLBW is expanding through innovation, software, and digital hybrid printing to make it effortless to establish and build your brand through stickers, labels, and packaging. We love the expression of a brand through design and typography and believe when beautifully printed plays a crucial role in fueling recognition. Try us out; we're sure you'll be amazed.

Since 1878, New York Label & Box Works™ has provided packaging services for companies in the metropolitan area and beyond. Over the years, our company has evolved to meet the demands of an ever more sophisticated marketplace, such as the Cosmetic, Health, Food, Beverage, Pharmaceutical, Vitamin, and Nutraceutical industries. Today, NY Label & Box Works with our two ideal locations – continues to provide the premier products and services that our customers have always expected.

Engagelogic is a privately held, NY-based software development and early-stage venture firm. Engagelogic brings experience and execution together to create beautiful, standards-compliant, performance- and SEO-optimized, people-friendly experiences for web and mobile. Engagelogic has built and managed SaaS platforms that thousands of businesses use and millions of people engage with.

An UID can include an overt or covert mark, which can be laser ablated into a product or printed directly onto it or embedded within a chip, or a label.

The technology that is used to produce this UID or mark within the label varies but what’s important is that the label is the perfect vehicle that can be cost-effectively added to almost any product.

“Labels can address manufacturers’ needs and solve their problems in supply-chain, consumer-engagement and brand protection areas, all three of which have a commonality in that they need this UID and can utilize a label to plug into the world of “Smart Packaging”?,” he said.

“In our case we are a label company that has the technology to take this smart packaging and put it onto a label so that is it layered for better safety?. 

“We are partnered with 18 different technology companies. This means on the same label you can have different forms of anti-counterfeiting, track & trace and customer engagement?.”

As Mike Masotti, who leads new product innovation at the company, recalls, packaging was becoming highly commoditized. So to stand out, the company, which operates facilities in Islandia, N.Y., and Hackensack, N.J., went in a different direction, taking on new capabilities its competitors weren’t offering.

“We do some commodity work,” Masotti says. “but the majority of our work comes from labels or cartons that are highly decorated, whether it’s some sort of embellishment like a tactile varnish or a hot foil, or inside printing or specialty inks. Or it can have a digital component, which helps the customer with their supply chain or brand protection needs, or even just with consumer engagement.”

With the rise of new technologies impacting how packaging is produced and the ways consumers interact with it, not only have printers and converters had to assess their current workflows and output, but also consider the future landscape of the industry.

“We made a commitment from the top down on innovation,” Masotti says. “More companies recognize that’s a key thing that’s important to do. Innovate and offer new products, as opposed to just doing what everyone else can do.”

Automation and Efficiency

New York Label & Box Works is a leader in brand protection solutions. Pictured: Holographic foil is implemented in-line. Image courtesy of New York Label & Box Works.

In the packaging segment of the printing industry, increasing efficiency is consistently a top-of-mind goal among printers and converters. But, as Jan De Roeck, marketing director — industry relations and strategy for Esko, explains, in order to successfully implement a strategy based around technology that addresses this issue, the first step is to understand the drivers behind the growing need for efficiency.

The common refrain, De Roeck says, is that print runs are becoming shorter, as brands — particularly in CPG and pharmaceutical markets — are developing more varied product lines in order to draw consumers in. As a result, converters are now tasked with pushing more jobs through their workflows than ever before, and many of these jobs are decreasing in length.

From a technological standpoint, De Roeck says there’s a key strategy to consider.

“I would definitely look at some automation with a big, capital ‘A,’” he says.

But before investing in technological solutions that can boost automation and efficiency, De Roeck suggests that converters take some time to reflect on their operations and ask themselves how far along their business is in becoming a “digital business.”

What this means is that everyday components like workflow, job tickets, and order envelopes need to become digitized. Without taking these digitization steps, De Roeck explains that the human intervention converters are accustomed to may cause automation initiatives to eventually fail.

“As long as things are on paper or disconnected, this automation will fail at some point,” he says. “If you’re still managing your jobs internally or your communication is managed internally with brown order bags or big envelopes, there’s something missing there.”

One strategy for determining the aspects of a business that may benefit the most from automation is by creating a value stream map (VSM), which results in an overview of the current operations of a converter’s entire workflow. Identifying all of the steps in the process, and quantifying the resources needed to complete each step, can very quickly open a business owner’s eyes to the potential benefits of automation.

De Roeck says it’s often revealing to see how much time is wasted in the search for files that should be readily available. He adds that development is underway to enhance asset management technology, which allows prepress software to communicate with a customer’s database, locating files quickly and reducing the potential for human error.

“There’s a constant search for ‘What is the latest version of that file?’ ‘What is the latest version of that image?’ ‘Where’s the approved version of the ingredient copy for that label?’” De Roeck says. “Rather than searching for files, people should be finding files.”

Beyond automation as a strategy for increasing efficiency and reducing waste, converters also may need to look at machines to take on tasks that have typically been done by people. Tom Egan, VP of industry services for packaging and processing technology association PMMI, explains that the labor shortage throughout the printing and packaging industry has led to a need for equipment to pick up the slack.

Tom Egan of PMMI explains that data analytics will be beneficial to printers and converters’ processes. Here, a line of shrink sleeves are applied to bottles during PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2017. Image courtesy of PMMI.

On the flip side of that, however, Egan explains that implementing automation solutions does lead to a need for staff members who can manage and oversee it, which can be a good opportunity for converters to attract young members of the workforce.

“Recognize that you need a number of individuals that have the skills to address that automation,” Egan says. “That’s actually where new opportunities are arising for a whole variety of individuals coming into the workforce. They can really be working with electronics and working with automated technology, both on the mechanical and the electronic side to maintain the optimal operating capabilities of these different pieces of automation.”

Packaging Goes High-Tech

While the machinery behind the production of packaging is becoming increasingly technical, brands and consumers have also been able to benefit from the technology that is now being implemented into packaging itself. With increased capabilities for consumer engagement, data collection, and track and traceability, packaging is poised to become more than just a physical vessel to protect the product and inform the consumer.

According to Masotti, product security is a significant issue among brand owners, and in recent years, the concerns have extended beyond counterfeiting. Product diversion, for example, has become a significant obstacle for brands to overcome, but it is something that packaging has the ability to address.

Product diversion occurs when a brand has an agreement in place with a specific customer that a certain product can only be sold in certain locations. Masotti points to hair salons having exclusive sales rights to specific lines of shampoo. However, what brands are now finding, is that somewhere along the supply chain, a product may be removed and placed for sale elsewhere — particularly online.

Among the brand protection solutions offered by New York Label & Box Works are scratch off codes, covert printing visible under blacklights, and diecutting capabilities. Depending on a brand’s specific needs, it may benefit from various levels of security attributes. Image courtesy of New York Label & Box Works.

However, by implementing a unique identifier (UID) on a package, which can take both an overt (QR code, serial number, etc.) or covert (invisible ink) form, a brand can pinpoint precisely where a product was diverted and who was responsible.

“We’ll even use codes that are decoys and are meant to be found by the diverter so they don’t look elsewhere for other codes that we hide,” Masotti says. “There’s a whole strategy around this and it depends on the brand and what their problem is.”

In addition to addressing security issues, brands have also had to consider the evolution of the consumer’s shopping experience, and the role packaging plays. Egan explains that with e-commerce, brands and retailers have access to more consumers than ever before, and can use it to its own benefit, as well as the consumers’.

For example, Egan mentions that prior to the final season of the “Game of Thrones” television series, he noticed Oreo had launched a limited edition product with “Game of Thrones” themed packaging. He explains that if a consumer was purchasing this package online, the retailer could then make the safe assumption that the consumer is a fan of the show and offer other “Game of Thrones” products.

“The data acquisition on the consumer side is allowing us to get to that more unique package that can be provided to an individual,” Egan says. “E-commerce allows not only that data acquisition, but fulfillment in a more unique way.”

A Look at What’s to Come

When looking ahead at what the next significant advancements will be to impact the packaging production process, De Roeck says he foresees that much of it will be related to metadata, which he explains is the “data about the actual production data itself.”

In addition to automating processes like quality checks on design, in which production data can be utilized to ensure text and graphics aren’t too close to a dieline or beneath a glue flap, De Roeck explains metadata can also be used to quickly make changes to a whole line of packaging if need be.

For example, he says that if there is a change in legislation regarding nutrition panels and a brand needs to make a specific change across a variety of its packaging, a quick search could locate the packaging that needs to be changed and automate the implementation of it.

“These are the kind of things that are to some extent already possible today and actually contribute to a much higher level of automation in prepress.,” De Roeck says.

Egan points to the growing use of data within the production process as a strong tool for both understanding and improving workflow. By having machines communicate with each other to collect data, and then being able to analyze it, Egan explains that converters can better understand their own operations and how to optimize them.

“They want to link together what they’re doing on their order entry side all the way through to the raw material acquisition, to making just the right amount of product at just the right amount of time, to getting it out effectively into the marketplace to the point of sale for the consumer,” he says. “The data acquisition is helping them with that and many companies are spending significant amounts of money in data acquisition.”

De Roeck explains that as printers and converters begin to consider the technological advancements available to them, it can often be a challenge to get them to consider solutions beyond just the addition of a new press, or the replacement of an old one.

But, he explains that those who embrace the process of value stream mapping may instantly realize there are unexpected areas of their businesses that could benefit from the implementation or upgrading of automation software. Locating areas in need of improvement, whether it’s prepress, on press, or even in the shipping department, and then implementing the technology available to make those improvements, can lead to significant new efficiencies in the production process.

“That realization for many business owners is eye-opening,” he says.

While this article will focus primarily on the physical attributes of the printed label, in subsequent follow-ups, I will outline how packaging with added security features (labels, cartons, tags, flexible) can be part of an overall successful brand protection program, as well as how you can utilize some of these same features in a broader brand strategy. This strategy can integrate your supply-chain, help you meet traceability requirements, enhance consumer engagement, ensure consumer safety, provide product provenance, get your product ready for "blockchain" and the IoT and more.

It's challenging to separate brand protection technologies and techniques into distinct categories because there can be overlap in attributes, functionality, and method of application. For example, a 2D code would be considered overt if printed with black ink for supply-chain with a "track and trace" application, but covert if printed with security ink to be used to track product diversion. As well, microtext can be considered covert by itself, but it can also be incorporated into an overt hologram. However, for the sake of this article, I grouped them according to common usage in the following manner:

Overt (visible to the naked eye)

• Optical variable device (such as Holographic)
• Color-Shifting (dependant on viewing angle)
• Guilloche (ornate geometric decoration)

Covert (requires a visual aid or trigger)

• Micro-text (hidden text only legible under magnification)
• Color-Shifting (changes with optical filter)
• Latent image (revealed with optical filter)
• UV/IR Security inks (fluoresce within specific wavelength range)
• Taggants (added to paper fibers, adhesive, ink, or varnish)
• Security fibers (fluoresce within particular wavelength range)
• Engineered defects (intentional anomalies to assist counterfeit detection)

Forensic (requires lab analysis or equipment)

• Security inks (visible with proprietary viewing device)
• DNA markers (added to paper fibers, adhesive, ink, or varnish)

Tamper evident materials and techniques

• Void adhesive (void message is left behind when the substrate is peeled up)
• Perforations (alternating cuts along product seam to alert of prior opening)
• Security slits (cuts in certain areas to prevent complete label removal)
• Frangible substrates (breaks apart on attempts to pull up substrate)
• Irreversible color-changing (thermochromic, chemical-reactive)

Concealment techniques

• Peel-Up (dry peel or perforated multi-layered structure)
• Scratch-Off (substrate, ink or stamping foil)

Data storage mechanisms

• 1D codes (barcode)
• 2D Codes (Datamatrix, QR)
• RFID inlay (commonly used for supply-chain)
• NFC inlay (widely used for consumer engagement)
• Alpha-Numeric (human-readable character string)

It's important to mention that a number of these technologies such as security inks and microtext can be applied or achieved with both analog (conventional) and digital (variable) printing. I've excluded technologies such as watermarks, anti-copy inks, coin-reactive inks and any others that are more likely to be used in document security, currency, and tax stamp printing. Also, there are some new advances such as nanotechnology that I have not included due to current implementation limitations, market acceptance or the associated costs.

When developing a strategy, below are some typical questions that you should answer before you design your label. The answers to these will help you determine what technologies and features to use, as well as, where on the label you should place them.

• What is the nature of the illicit trade?
• What is the type of product affected?
• How pervasive is the problem?
• How sophisticated are the offenders?
• Should you use the brand's primary label or a secondary security label?
• Which printing method will be used (digital, conventional, hybrid)?
• What are the aesthetic constraints?
• Are there mandated traceability requirements?
• Should you address any legal concerns?
• How will you capture, aggregate and manage the data?
• Will you repurpose the data for marketing purposes?
• Who will authenticate (customs official, field investigator, consumer)?
• Where will it be authenticated (port of entry, lab, retail outlet)?
• How will it be authenticated (visually, with proprietary tools, smartphone)?
• How much can you budget for this program?

What is the nature of the illicit trade?

Depending on whether the problem is counterfeiting, parallel imports (grey market product), product diversion, or even a combination, this should dictate which technologies you should employ, which substrates to use, and how it should function. The appropriate design can allow for deterrence, prevention as well as detection.

Anti-Counterfeiting strategies

As a general rule, anti-counterfeiting measures, at a minimum, would include one analog feature (I would recommend an additional digital component as well). What type of element you should use and whether it is visible or hidden depends on what type of product it is, who will authenticate it, as well as how and where it will be verified.

Among consumers, there is a general acceptance of the likelihood of counterfeits of products such as licensed footwear, apparel, luxury items, or consumer electronics. The inclusion of a hologram on the packaging or directly on the product is viewed as proof of authenticity, so the lack thereof might cause them to suspect a legitimate product as being fake. While the product is expected to have that type of feature, holograms are easily replicated, and that creates an authentication difficulty for the brand.

Replacing the hologram with a more advanced (but similar in appearance) OVD alternative such as a De La Rue™ Izon® element would alleviate the authentication issue. It cannot be faked; the method of production and materials used to create Izon are proprietary and exclusive to that company. To the consumer, it appears to be a holographic-type element conveying authenticity, and consistent verification by the investigator can be achieved due to the distinct embedded attributes of the technology.

Outside of certain product types, where it is expected to have an overt anti-counterfeiting element, the inclusion of one could perhaps hurt the brand. Unless the brand has implemented an "awareness" campaign, the consumer would have no idea on what to look for. Also, calling attention to the existence of fakes might end up alienating the consumer (consumer safety excepted and that still would require some education on the part of the consumer); they might move to another brand that they believe is authentic.

This consumer perception and acceptance will most likely evolve in the coming years as their awareness increases. Until then, it's a risk that the brand needs to consider before incorporating this type of overt element. And, unless it offers some aesthetic or practical value to the brand, why would a marketing team allow for an element that might otherwise be considered obtrusive?

If you need to incorporate an analog feature for authentication that remains inconspicuous to the consumer, the use of either a physical or chemical marker (taggant) such as Smartrac’s Ultra-Covert (formerly known as Kodak Ultra-Covert), can be added to inks, coatings, or adhesives. While it's typically used as a "flood coat" to overlay the entire label surface, you can also apply it to select areas with a printing plate, such as when you require it to located, specifically in a brand's logo, as an example.

In this scenario, you could include one type of visible feature for authentication that would be considered acceptable, aesthetically and can serve as a means of authentication by the consumer as well, without the need for an awareness campaign. The inclusion of a unique QR Code (digital print) could suffice, but you would need to prompt the consumer to scan it. Integrating it into a rewards program or warranty registration would work. Marketing professionals will recognize the value of having additional data to be used with analytics on consumer behavior. This code will usually contain a URL with a unique alpha-numeric string appended to the end of it.

You should provide some visual confirmation on the smartphone for the consumer of what has happened after scanning. If the product warranty registration process was completed or they just received a reward, or you may even want to share the fact that it has been authenticated. You definitely should alert the consumer if the product is found to be inauthentic.

However, counterfeiters look for unique identifiers such as this and will either duplicate that exact code repeatedly or increment the subsequent codes for each counterfeit item produced. There are a few ways to address this.

With repeated duplicates of the same code, you can set a threshold with the application logic that is managing the scanned data to allow for only a certain number of scans. Once that number has been exceeded you would be alerted to a problem. You should allow for repeated scans by the consumer or multiple consumers, before and after purchase, in different locations - it happens. The appropriate number of scans that should be allowed will vary for every product and scenario.

You can also add a secondary means of authentication, such as another unique QR Code or a PIN comprised of a unique alpha-numeric string (more common). This would be considered a multi-factor or two-step authentication where the consumer completes a scan on the QR Code then is prompted to enter or scan the additional element.

The secondary code (non-sequential, randomly generated) should have no obvious association with the first code, except that it resides on the same row in a database as a pair. This strategy is advantageous because, while the counterfeiter might figure out the series of identifiers on the primary QR Code, it would be impossible for them to identify the correct match for both. It is typically hidden under a peel-up label or a scratch-off area. However, this requires more interaction from the consumer. Again, this will not be a good fit for all products.

Instead of using a multi-factor authentication you could use an encrypted QR Code, such as SQRC® from the company that invented the QR Code - Denso Wave™ in Japan. The advantage of this is that it contains two types of data: public and private. The public is fully exposed and can be used for supply-chain and marketing purposes. The private data is encrypted and can contain tracking information. Outwardly, the QR Code appears to the counterfeiter (or product diverter) as a normal code and may be overlooked as a security feature.

Unfortunately, until recently, it was designed for use in supply-chain and could only be de-encrypted via industrial-type scanners. Denso Wave has recently provided developer partners with an SDK for smartphone apps, which is progress, but expecting consumers to download an application that they are unaware of is unrealistic. I believe that they have a cloud application that can perform authentication from a server, but until that is available for general use, this will be practical only for brand owners.

Again, it is advisable to have a good understanding of the nature of the problem before designing the strategy. It is much easier to develop a plan of action if you know how the counterfeiters are operating. Even then, you will have to adjust your strategy as the counterfeiters will over time.

I interviewed Steven Haedrich, CEO to talk about his secret ingredient to success in the long term.

“Our key recommendation is to work to continuously expose the system to improve quality and promote innovation unleashing workers ideas. Everybody today wants “instant pudding”, and that is not how it works.” He mentioned that suppliers and clients were seeing what they do, and they see the value they provide, but they still not practice the same methods because it takes a mindset change from the top.

Changing a company culture to make it more agile and ready to adapt to customer needs is not easy. As Steven says, takes years of implementation, new habits, policies, and a clear purpose to serve the customer. They decided then to apply Edwards Deming teachings like the PDSA, the 14 principles, the chain reaction and the System of profound knowledge to help them change their current behaviors.

The Deming Chain reaction

When you improve the quality of the company as a system you have less re-work, fewer mistakes and fewer delays, so you end up having lower costs. Therefore your productivity improves, capturing a bigger market share, staying longer in business. If you stay in business you provide more jobs and keep on lowering costs as turn over costs are reduced as well. That’s the Deming chain reaction.

After many years in business, NY Label realized the way they were working was not as effective as it used to be so they hired consultants to help them promote innovation among workers. “We started in 1993 with an external Deming consultant, worked with him for 5 years, we thought that we were fine on our own, but then we hired another one again in 2007.” Usually, companies need an outside observer to see things they get used to doing.

The power of unleashing workers potential

Steven could see that unleashing workers potential was the way to improve and innovate. Companies like Apple and Facebook had great innovators as leaders, but they had a team with them to help them. In the past companies would survive without changing too much their product offering, but nowadays customer have more information about different options and competitors, so they become more selective and sophisticated.

Now big international firms look for their products because of the quality and their innovative offering. Their labels are customized, include key security technologies, anti-diversion and anti-counterfeiting.

What is their magic pill to innovate? “We basically let the innovator play with no fear”.

The three pillars of his company are: quality, innovation and joy at work.

Quality

Improve quality by satisfying and delighting customers. Improved quality can bring reduces costs by reducing delays, re-work and complaints, but reduced costs only in on department without considering how it impacts other departments, can reduce quality. So processes have to be analyzed as a system, from the customer order to the delivery. For example, most of the companies provide bonuses and incentives only to the sales team, why is that? Are they the only ones providing value to the customer? What about the rest of the company? Did you know that when people are motivated by money they tend to do whatever it takes, and that could hurt the company in the long term? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Innovation

Edwards Deming would say “let people think, help people to think out of the box with no fear”. Steven firmly believes that “Workers want to be innovative”, but as Rafael Aguayo says in his article Why Deming, Why Now, for innovation and improvement to occur with regularity “individuals in the organization need the confidence to bring up new ideas. A company must tolerate even encourage new ideas”. There could be a failure while testing some innovative ideas, so management has to be really clear on not punishing failure, driving out of fear and promoting innovation. Otherwise, individuals will not take the risk.

RECOMMENDED COURSES: Agile innovation in the workplace

Joy at work

When employees have no fear of proposing ideas, know they can contribute at work and are being listened, they will have joy at work. And if they feel joy at work, they will stay longer and help the customer better. So they will contribute with more ideas for improvement and this becomes a positive snowball effect.

Some things they did

Big changes came when they changed the following rules:

• Eliminated sales commission
• No quotes required
• Eliminated yearly performance evaluations, around 75% of the companies have them, but they only frustrate employees.
• Promoting joy at work by making them talk about what they need

Now they have no turnover rate and new products for their customers.

How to start?

Steven started working project by project under systems thinking. “Start with a pilot, what we call “low hanging fruit”. You can get quick wins by focusing on small problems that generate a big cash impact. Focus the projects on solving issues that save time or money. Big barriers or constraints to make more money. Get the help of an external consultant, because even when you as an owner learn about how to improve, is not always possible to see it in your company, you need someone from outside to help you see things differently. Mainly because 94% of the problems are caused by the system that the leadership built, so leaders need to change a lot as well.”

We recommend companies to start with a Deming Workshop our with our Leadership training that is based on the Deming principles and an innovation and creative problem-solving project to put the learnings to practice. It’s a long way, but you have to start some day. Good luck!

Owner Rich Stabile was looking for a label supplier that can produce labels with a "high-end," "upscale look" in a consistent manner. According to Stabile, "We partnered with New York Label because we wanted to use a company that we knew met the stringent quality requirements for our brands. We've been excited to be partners with them for over five years and we continue that tight relationship as we grow our products into a national market. The most important thing in the spirits world is making sure you have a supplier that can give you consistent quality in the packaging, and New York Label has never failed us. Their color is always true. The quality, the materials that we use need to be consistent because this is the showcase of our brand." he also went on to say "We can provide, develop the most incredible tasting spirits on the inside of the bottle but consumers have an affinity to make sure our brands are well-represented on the shelf. So making sure that the label has a consistent color and represents our brand with the highest quality is very, very important to us, and with that New York Label has done an excellent job in being able to provide our quality and consistency in a timely fashion. I'm a very proud partner of New York Label."

Long Island Spirits makes use of some of the special decorating effects that New York Label & Box Works has to offer, such as different colored hot-stamp foils, embossing, and tactile UV coatings, in addition to the wide selection of special wine substrates offered by the company. They are thrilled to be partnering with a local business that appreciates the value of consistent quality and is able to showcase its capabilities in this market segment.

Please check out the video spotlighting Long Island Spirits.

Today the Eastman Kodak Company Brand Protection Solutions unit and New York Label & Box Works announced a partnership to provide advanced brand protection capabilities. The two companies can help brands combat counterfeiters and diverters with invisible serialization and other overt, covert and ultra-covert features that provide a layered set of protections.

The increase of global counterfeiting and product diversion has created a need for brand owners to increase the level of sophistication of the brand protection measures they build into their packaging. NY Label has fully-integrated state-of-the-art variable data print technology into their flexographic printing process so that they can provide both overt and covert serialization. The covert codes can be hidden in ways that make them hard to find, hard to remove, and, in some cases, illegal to remove.

“NY Label is a great partner for Kodak because of their experience and strong process knowledge” said Richard Gammons, Product Manager for Kodak Brand Protection Solutions. “In a remarkably short period of time, the two companies have equipped NY Label with the ability to offer multiple brand protection features -- some of which required new equipment and processes that are unfamiliar to the vast majority of print providers.”

Kodak‘s TRACELESS family of products are systems that include a material component that is added to the label and a reader/viewer that is available only from Kodak. Not all print suppliers have the capability to incorporate all these technologies into their offerings.

"The Kodak solution is an important improvement over what we had the capability to provide to our customers previously" said Mike Masotti, Director of Product Innovation at NY Label, "In accordance with a core principle of our quality philosophy - continuous improvement, we want to be proactive and stay ahead of the diverters; what we previously offered was very robust and effective, but with the additional software, hardware and ink technologies from Kodak, we can now say to our customers that we can truly offer the most ‘bullet-proof’ Brand Protection label in the industry."

The New York Label team was delighted by the thorough technical support from the engineers, chemists, and scientists from Kodak's Brand Protection team.

“The first major project that was printed utilizing the Traceless AD technology, for a global luxury cosmetic company, was produced without any additional downtime,” said Craig Streibel, senior press operator for New York Label. “The Traceless AD ink performed even better than the generic security ink that he has been running for three plus years.”

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About New York Label and Box Works
Since 1878, New York Label & Box Works™ has provided packaging services for companies in the metropolitan area and beyond. Over the years, our company has evolved to meet the demands of an ever more sophisticated marketplace, such as the Cosmetic, Health, Food, Beverage, Pharmaceutical, Vitamin and Nutraceutical industries. Today, NY Label & Box Works with our two ideal locations - continues to provide the premier products and services that our customers have always expected.

About Kodak Brand Protection
Kodak Brand Protection Solutions provides both drop-in and custom brand protection solutions to the Apparel, Health & Beauty, Wines & Spirits, and Pharmaceutical markets. The KODAK TRACELESS family of products range from the Traceless Ultracovert System which provides forensically undetectable authentication to the Traceless AD System which provides invisible serialization marks via CIJ printing. Traceless products can be incorporated directly into the product itself or on the product packaging via inks, varnishes, or TTR printing. For additional information visit Kodak.com/go/brandprotection or email us at traceless@kodak.com.

About Kodak
Kodak is a technology company focused on imaging. We provide - directly and through partnerships with other innovative companies - hardware, software, consumables and services to customers in graphic arts, commercial print, publishing, packaging, electronic displays, entertainment and commercial films, and consumer products markets. With our world-class R&D capabilities, innovative solutions portfolio and highly trusted brand, Kodak is helping customers around the globe to sustainably grow their own businesses and enjoy their lives. For additional information on Kodak, visit us at kodak.com, follow us on Twitter @Kodak, or like us on Facebook at KodakNow.

May 23 - 25, 2016
Wind Watch Golf & Country Club
Hauppauge, New York

"I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management), 6% special" - Dr. Deming

Aim: Implementing Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge (a.k.a. The Deming Management Method) to lead a professionally managed organization.

Dr. Deming said, “a bad system will beat a good person every time&rdquo. At this seminar you will learn to look at your organization through a new lens; a lens of how to make your system better - and thus get better results. You will gain new knowledge to remove barriers, increase efficiencies, reduce wasted time, boost motivation, and provide better insight into what&rsquos really going on in your organization. And, you’ll discover how to measure what is (and is not) realistically possible for your organization to achieve.

This seminar explores simple and powerful principles and is appropriate for anyone who manages people or who holds executive responsibility. Topic areas include the four elements of Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge (a.k.a. The Deming Management Method):

• Understanding of and Appreciation for your Organization as a System - How to lead & optimize a system - not destroy it. Foster Respect & Joy in work.
• Understanding Variation - Conclusions we can/cannot make from data & observations. Actions to take.
• The Theory of Knowledge - Is what we “know” really so? Learning - Improvement - Rational Thinking.
• Understanding Psychology - The truth about how humans react & interact. Beliefs - Behaviors - Consequences.

Speaker Information
Kelly Allan, Advisory Board Chair and Senior Facilitator of the W. Edwards Deming Institute

Lynda Finn, 2.5 Day seminar Facilitator of the W. Edwards Deming Institute

Seminar Information
Deming Management Method for Owners and Executives
May 23-24, 9:00 - 5:00p
May 25, 9:00 - 1:00p

Location Information
Wind Watch Golf & Country Club
1715 Motor Parkway
Hauppauge, NY 11788

Hotel Information
Hyatt Regency Long Island
1717 Motor Parkway
Hauppauge, NY 11788

Who Should Attend
Business owners, presidents, and senior leaders of privately-held businesses, government agencies, non-profits or other community organizations. We encourage teams to attend, as there will be opportunities to apply some of the concepts to your business.

What’s Included
Includes facilitated program, Dr. Deming’s book “The New Economics”, handouts, light breakfast, lunch and beverages

Registration Information
Cost: $1,000 Per Person

Label space is valuable real estate and let’s face it, sometimes there just isn’t enough room to say all that needs to be said. Expanded Content Labels (ECLs) do a great job of exponentially increasing the space needed to convey ingredient lists, usage directions and FDA-mandated information (for SPF products) in multiple languages.

Mike Masotti, computer design manager and marketing, New York Label & Box Works, Islandia, NY, a manufacturer of ECLs, says accordion-like booklet formats and “peel and reseal” wafer tabs are key design features for these types of labels. “You often will see [booklet labels] applied to the bottom of lipstick canisters or cream jars that are not intended to reflect any marketing information,” he says, noting that New York Label & Box Works can create proprietary constructions that allow for up to 15 panels of additional copy and can be as small as .625” in diameter.

Resealable labels feature a “hinged” area that connects one panel to the next. “Currently, New York Label & Box Works provides resealable labels in a variety of constructions that include two-, three-, and five-panel configurations (up to 500% increase in copy area),” he says. “As an extension of the primary product label, aesthetics and functionality of resealable labels are paramount.

These labels not only need to maintain good product-resistance and moisture-resistance, but in addition, must be able to peel and reseal for the life of the product.”

Thwarting Diversion & Counterfeiting

In addition to delivering decorative flair, some labels also double as security sentinels.

“The explosion of global counterfeiting and brand diversion (gray market) has created a need for brand owners to protect their goods with an increased sophistication built into their packaging,” says New York Label & Box Works’ Masotti. “This is done with Variable data systems and software, serialization, track & trace, and covert as well as overt technologies [which] allow for monitoring diversion throughout the manufacturing and distribution supply chain and authentication in the marketplace via customized methods.”

Masotti says brand protection options for labels include overt variable codes to track through supply chain (visible bar codes and QR codes that are unique to each label); covert codes that typically correlate to overt codes (hidden human-readable digits and are only visible with proprietary hardware/software); holographic foils to convey authenticity for consumers; security coatings with micro-taggants that can only be verified with proprietary hardware/software; and tamper-proof and tamper-evident label constructions through use of security substrates and special cutting dies.

To up its tech ante, New York Label & Box Works has partnered with Eastman Kodak to deliver additional levels of brand protection technologies. “The Kodak technologies now add extra ‘layers’ of security to New York Label & Box Works’ pressure-sensitive label offerings, including traceless coatings (in both aqueous and UV cured), thermal transfer ribbons, and special CIJ security inks,” Masotti says. “Unlike traditional security inks that are common on the market, that can be read with any UV black light flashlight, Kodak’s technologies can only be detected by using proprietary equipment.”

The company’s online address, since1878.com, says it all about the longevity of the business that the Haedrich family acquired in 1930. But the firm’s current president, Steven Haedrich, decided that the weight of history wasn’t enough. He wanted to manage in a forward-looking way that would instill quality into every phase of the operation by empowering and encouraging everyone in the company to deliver it.

Haedrich says that Deming’s 14 points have been the points on his management compass throughout more than 20 years of making certain his staff have the tools and knowledge they need to keep continuous improvement at the core of the everyday routine at New York Label & Box Works. He notes that when people instinctively take pride and joy in the quality of what they produce, the benefits of the chain reaction naturally follow: lower costs, increased productivity, greater market share, and better survivability. (A presentation by Haedrich to the Deming Institute on his application of the Deming philosophy can be viewed here.)

As a printing company, the Deming laboratory that Haedrich leads consists of two plants in the New York metropolitan area: one on Long Island in Islandia, NY, and the other in Hackensack in northern New Jersey. About 80 people work at these facilities manufacturing folding cartons and labels for customers in the company’s primary markets, which include cosmetics, vitamins, and food. (“In the industries we picked,” remarks Haedrich, “China is not taking over”—another factor, he believes, in the exceptional staying power of New York Label & Box Works.)

The company’s repertoire is broad, as can be seen from the catalogs of the folding carton styles and label product types it offers. What many of these items increasingly have in common, says Haedrich, is complexity: richer color, fancier substrates, more special effects, and whatever else customers think it will take for their labels and packages to stand out against the competition on retail shelves. Haedrich says that New York Label & Box Works is equipped to deliver this kind of complexity in every job that comes its way, no matter how unusual the requirements.

Recently, for a cosmetics maker doing a test launch, he and his team produced 250,000 labels enhanced with four different techniques: water-based ink, UV ink, rotary screen printing, and hot foil stamping. In another project, a run of about 1 million cartons featured UV spot color on both sides along with gloss coating, matte film lamination, and inline diecutting. Doing the diecutting on press saved the client about 20%, Haedrich says.

Flexography and sheetfed offset lithography are the mainstay processes at New York Label & Box Works. The company has a fleet of 11 flexo presses, most of them from Mark Andy, in 10-, 8-, 7, and 6-color configurations. Label printing on these machines has shifted from paper to mainly film-based production, Haedrich says. For folding-carton work, there is a six-color, 28" x 40" Mitsubishi offset press supported by a Bobst diecutter and a folding carton gluer from the same source.

Digital printing isn’t in the portfolio and isn’t likely to be, at least not in the near term. Haedrich says that while he respects and admires what digital processes can do, he doesn’t see them as complementary to his existing capability.

For one thing, runs of the lengths the company typically produces can’t be printed economically on digital equipment designed for smaller quantities. Haedrich also thinks that bringing in a new technology would only add expense—in staffing, supplies, maintenance, and machine breakdowns—without lowering his overall cost of operation. He says that, faced with a customer’s claim that digital could do a given job for less money, he would try to keep the job by finding a way to print it at that cost using his conventional presses.

Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be correct to say that New York Label & Box Works is entirely without digital printing assets, because the company does have one solution of this kind—a value-adding press enhancement that Haedrich rates as one of his most important recent investments in production technology.

This device, a variably printing UV inkjet unit from Domino that runs inline on one of the flexo presses, can place bar codes, QR codes, and invisible-ink tags onto labels as they are being printed. The main application is anti-counterfeiting and anti-diverting protection for pharmaceuticals and high-end cosmetics.

A specialty increasingly requested for brand communication purposes is the extended-content label (ECL) format, which consists of multiple panels or plies that can be opened and closed like booklet pages. Haedrich says that he first ventured into ECL on behalf of a customer that discovered it could not fit all the information that government regulations required it to print within the limited real estate of an ordinary label. He notes that multi-page labels also work well for globally distributed products that need to be presented in more than one language.

Like nearly all other packaging printers, New York Label & Box Works is learning to deal with SKU proliferation and other factors that tend to drive run lengths down. Haedrich says that his volumes have stayed cumulatively the same even as the batches they consist of have grown smaller and more numerous. But, the changing workload can be hard to predict, making staying ahead of it that much more challenging.

The best way to do it, according to Haedrich, is to double down on quality and keep it at the highest level by eliminating variation—a bedrock principle of the Deming system.

He says that for one customer, New York Label & Box Works came as close to achieving that ideal as it’s possible to come by maintaining a 99.7% quality rate in 30 million labels produced. The client’s quality management department observed that this was the only example it had seen of a vendor expanding its business and improving its processes at the same time.

“If you improve your quality, you can lower your cost” and reap all of the other benefits of the Deming chain reaction, Haedrich says. What today’s customers want above all, he insists, is predictable, repeatable, and consistent delivery of product—the kind of performance that sets New York Label & Box Works and its Deming orientation apart. He’s confident that by staying true to those principles, the company will have many years yet to add to its long history in labels and packaging.

Flexo, the trade's leading magazine, profiles New York Label & Box Works with an eight-page feature article entitled "Innovating Since 1878" in the March 2015 issue.

In this article, New York Label & Box Works owner Steven Haedrich delves into his company's history, its present day capabilities and unique offerings, and its adherence to W. Edward Deming's namesake philosophy of management.

The article is based on an interview that the FTA (Flexographic Trade Association) conducted with Steven Haedrich at the company's Islandia, NY facility and focuses on a few areas of importance:

• Company's history
• Current capabilities
• Product offerings
• Dr. Deming philosophy

Read the complete article online.*

* Requires registration

New Jersey Label in South Hackensack, a sister company of the New York Label & Box Works in Islandia, N.Y., is not just another “Jersey location.

“Our companies have the same philosophies, systems, culture and focus — so in a way, we're essentially one company with two names,” President Steven Haedrich said.

“But we serve different clients.”

While the 135-year old New York Label & Box Works was acquired by the Haedrich family in 1930, New Jersey Label was only established in 1993 to meet the needs of a growing industry.

“Our niche is our ability to be a single-source vendor, whether it's a lot of different kinds of labels, constructions or the label-carton combination,” Haedrich said. “We handle all the complexity and do it with quality.”

New Jersey Label focuses entirely on printing labels, whereas the New York Label & Box Works dedicates 10 percent of its current production to making folding paperboard containers.

Between the two companies, the food, cosmetics and vitamin industries account for 80 percent of business, with 80 percent of sales taking place in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

Originally located in Englewood, New Jersey Label moved to its current South Hackensack facility in 2007 to help some of those employees.

“The move was to get a little further west,” Haedrich said. “Englewood was so close to the city that it was troublesome for the workers with traffic.”

It brings up a good point: most businesses completely relocate from New York when moving to New Jersey — why hasn't the New York Label & Box Works?

“We've toyed with the idea,” Haedrich said, “But we felt it was best for us to stay in Long Island, too, because of our great customers here.”

On the flip side, Haedrich said there are several clients in New Jersey that don't ever want to travel to Long Island.

“I had a client once tell me he'd rather fly to North Carolina for a press proof than drive across two bridges to get to Long Island.”

Good thing New Jersey Label just invested in new technology, then. Its 10-color, 13-inch “flexographic” press will now allow for specialized configurations and longer print runs while lowering costs and increasing speed.

Because if you think labels are simple to manufacture, think again — there are labels meant to withstand cold temperatures, labels for squeezable tubes, multipage booklet labels, labels meant to be peeled off produce and much more.

“Not only are we looking right now at opening a separate folding carton division, we're also looking into a Florida division to manufacture labels specifically for the cosmetic industry,” Haedrich said.

But while complexity has increased over the past five years, so has client demand for lower prices.

“There's way too much drive in this country to lower costs when lower costs may cause safety and quality problems,” Haedrich said.

“It's okay if I lose money in my prep department as long as that savings is translated into better efficiency.”

Furthering on its philosophy of continuous improvement, the New Jersey facility's new Performance Series press reaffirms its commitment to investing in technologies and equipment that provide the necessary versatility to continue to service the growing diversity of client needs. In addition, the wider width helps reduce costs while satisfying complexity with ten stations and two UV units.

The addition of this Mark Andy P3 press at the New Jersey facility will immediately add additional flexibility to its production capabilities, including:

• Wider web configurations
• Lower costs
• Faster speeds
• Specialized longer print runs
• New print technology

According to New York Label Vice President Chris Freddo, this innovative new construction adds not only more copy area (400% additional space), but its unique lift tabs offer a more user-friendly way to peel up the panels. It is also printed and constructed in-line in one pass, and can accommodate individual spot colors on each of the five panels. He also states that while it may be “overkill” for most extended content applications, such as ones that could use a foldout booklet or one of New York Label's single-ply, two-ply or three-ply resealable labels, it certainly would help in cases where the container size is small and the label's surface area cannot hold all of the content required for governmental regulations, multi-lingual or promotional content. Additionally, it may be a fit where a booklet label would be very difficult to apply to the container.

This latest label innovation is one more affirmation of New York Label's commitment to continuous improvement to satisfy client needs.

To learn more about New York Label's specialty services, visit Since1878.com or call (800) 257-2300.

“The industry is changing,” he says. “Everyone talks about short run, and I'm not going to argue that, but the industry is also changing to complexity. Clients demand more, from anti-diversion to extended content, from resealable labels to UV inks and rotary screen. They just want more options.”

Not only does New York Label & Box Works provide the complexity sought by its customers, it also develops its own innovations using substrates, adhesives and coatings and markets them to its best clients.

New York Label & Box Works is only 134 years old, founded in Manhattan in 1878 by Herman Hug, back in the days when women wore tea gowns and men sported winged collars. In 1930 Frederick Haedrich Sr. acquired the business. “The story is that my grandfather had been working for his uncle and five cousins and wanted to branch out on his own,” recalls Steven Haedrich. “He bought the business with a partner and he would drive to pharmacies in New York City with my grandmother sitting in the car so he could double park, dropping off labels, and picking up orders.”

Complex constructions are a New York Label specialty. In the 1950s, the senior Haedrich was joined in the business by his sons, Frederick Jr. and Robert, who took over when their father died in 1975. Eventually the business was relocated to Islandia, NY, on Long Island. Steven, son of Frederick Jr., and his cousins became active in the business in the early 1980s. “We ran it together — two generations, two families — until 1996, when my dad and I bought out my uncle and cousins,” he says. His father retired two years ago.

“In 1996 we had about eight Webtron presses. We opened up a sister company, New Jersey Label, in 1993 with a Mark Andy 4150 press, 16" wide. Then we bought a 10" Mark Andy 2200 for New York Label, and another for New Jersey. All told we have eight Mark Andys in two plants.” All are 2200 models, all 10" wide, ranging in print stations from six to 10.

“The story for us is about quality,” Haedrich says. “The 2200 press has allowed us to grow with our clients in complexity. It's a solid press. It holds registration, it has quick setup, it's easy to maintain, it's a great technology, and Mark Andy has great relationships with all the vendors, so you can put any accessory on there that you want. And it's about quality.”

At some point during its long history, the company moved away from the box business, but has since revived the Box Works part of the historical name and is now producing folding paperboard containers. The box business amounts to about 10 percent of the total operation.

“We are mainly in three industries: food, cosmetics and vitamins, which account for about 80 percent of our business,” Haedrich says. “And we also produce boxes for many of our vitamin and cosmetics customers.” About 80 percent of sales takes place in four states: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

The complex constructions for which New York Label is known are generated mainly by two desires on the part of the customer: to eliminate other packaging, and to include more information. The need for more information is driven by one of two needs: compliance and multiple languages.

“The government just wants you to tell people what's in that box,” Haedrich observes. “The consumer wants more information; the consumer demands are far greater in terms of knowledge. The internet drives that: People go online and find out what's in a product, they find things they don't like and make the manufacturers disclose what someone is actually buying. It's almost completely consumer driven.”

In his focus on complexity, Haedrich returns to the value the company has found in the Mark Andy presses. “Complexity is about innovating, where you can help the client either reduce costs or solve their problem.

“We love the 2200. We stick with it because it works. Every time we order a new one, we get it built a little differently. Our latest one is incredibly complex: It has a reverse print station, a middle die station, six UV stations, and we have added anti-diversion printing. This is a very technologically-loaded press and we are using it to satisfy our clients' demands. It even has extra laminating stations and extra rewind stations.”

The newest 2200 was installed in December 2011, but Haedrich and his team worked with Mark Andy for six months to design the right press for the complex structures. The reversible print station allows for printing on the adhesive or on the back side of the web, because many resealable labels are printed on two sides. “We understood that eliminating the turn bar was going to help us with the predictability of creating a lot of these resealable labels. That was a big improvement.”

The die station in the middle of the press allows for die-cutting different shapes in multi-layered constructions. The UV units are employed for adhesives, deadeners and inks. The press also features more idlers for different webbings. “The more complex your work is, the more value added it is and the more you can charge. That makes a big difference,” Haedrich says.

Solving problems with innovation.

Complexity, as Haedrich has noted, has been growing over the past three or four years. “We didn't realize it was happening. Anti-diversion (overt and covert inkjet applications) is very new. It had been done using sheetfed on folding cartons in the glue line; our system takes it into the press line, and we are laminating over it so that it can't be scratched off. Resealable labels were invented six years ago, but back then it was one-size-fits-all. Three years ago it became, 'We want seven different resealable products for seven bottle types and seven jar types,'a and that was big. Three or four years ago the inline extended content labels kind of crept up on us, and then one day you have three 10-color presses, each one accessorized. Your environment's changed.”

The burgeoning complexity stimulated the creative synapses at New York Label & Box Works, so much so that the company now has a special innovation team. “On the innovation side it is about predictable, consistent quality, labels that perform, and at the end of the day it's about reducing the cost so that the complexity doesn't price the product out of the market,” says Haedrich. “We have a two-man innovation team that was instrumental in helping us design this latest press configuration along with the operators and the management team. In the old days it was management team and operators, now it's management team, operators and innovation guys, researching where we think the market's going and how we are going to be able to deal with the evolution of change.”

“Our whole company was about solving problems, which then evolved into innovation, which we use to kind of speed the process along, formalize it, and make sure we weren't just coming up with crazy solutions that weren't applicable. That department started last July, which was when we started looking at the new press. We realized we needed a press that would take us to the next level, preparing us for the innovative ideas and customer challenges that were in front of us.

“Our business model is built around the Deming quality philosophy, which is, very simply: When you improve quality you lower your costs; when you lower your costs your productivity improves; you pass the savings on to the customer, capture the market, stay in business, and provide jobs. Within the philosophy of quality improvement, it's broken down to five areas: man, material, machine, method and environment.

The company enjoys the predictability and consistency of the Mark Andy 2200. “When looking at the machine, it has to be durable, predictable, consistent, and able to be maintained. We have a lot of that with in-house maintenance crew and experienced operators. These presses are very well booked, and the manufacturer supports them very well. We picked Mark Andy as our main supplier years ago based on their focus on quality. Their machines are predictable and consistent, and the operator is not reinventing the wheel every day. It's a steady machine. Dollar for dollar it pays for itself in a very short amount of time.”

As Haedrich looks to the company's future, the intention is to build upon recent successes in complex, innovative constructions, such as custom-designed resealables, while continuing to rely on the versatility afforded by the presses to meet expanding client needs. This new direction includes tube-resealable labels, a wide variety of extended content multifold booklets with 4-color process artwork, small resealables, specialty coatings, tactile UV effects, anti-diversion and expanded carton packaging.

New York Label & Box Works anticipates the market moving towards greater specialization, such as late-stage customization; small run, high-end finishing techniques; added value labels with greater complexity; interactivity to engage customers; and brand protection. The focus at New York Label will be on prime labels and packaging, relying on testing new products, introducing new constructions, innovating wherever possible and solving client needs.

Islandia, New York — One of the highlights of the EastPack trade show held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center June 7-9 was the participation by New York Label & Box Works.™ The premier packaging company offered a “Brand Remedies” promotional product to attendees, attracting a great deal of attention. Featuring original artwork and copy that simulates a 19th century style, the promo has a 21st century twist, replete with QR code and high-tech labels.

The graphics on the outer folding carton are blue and gold on a white surface, with a profusion of hand-illustrated flowers and retro banners and scrolls. The “Brand Remedies” headline, set against a mortar and pestle graphic, sets the tone for the copy, which is evocative of old-fashioned apothecary products. The labels affixed to the cobalt blue bottle inside represent the specialty services New York Label provides. The multifold label on the cap shows how extended content can be managed within a compact area. An elegant rotary screen label demonstrates the kind of high-end service for which the company has become renowned over the course of its 130-year-plus history. Similarly, the resealable label on the opposite side of the bottle illustrates how New York Label has continued to innovate while staying true to its core standards.

“Apply directly to your product and watch your sales grow!” is prompted within one of the banners, replicating the advertising style that was popular when New York Label was founded in 1878. Elsewhere, customers are urged to improve their brands' “complexion” with a formula that is “efficacious in curing chronic sales and marketing fatigue.” The convincingly vintage effect of the promo is complemented by a QR code on the bottom of the carton, blending tradition and the latest technological advances.

Traffic at the New York Label booth at the EastPack expo was brisk, with many attendees lingering to discuss the wide array of what the promo text refers to as an “unsurpassed blend of packaging services and technologies” offered to manufacturers. Samples of the company's many products included piggyback, booklet and coupon labels, films and foil stamping. To learn more about New York Label's specialty services, visit www.Since1878.com or call (800) 257-2300.

New York Label & Box Works, an industry leader in the printing of pressure sensitive labels and folding cartons, has successfully conducted business since 1878, which is no small feat in the highly competitive manufacturing industry. Among other factors, New York Label & Box Works attributes its continued success largely to its ability to evolve with and to adapt to the needs of its marketplace. Today’s consumers call for high quality, durable, and lasting products at a reasonable price. To meet these requirements, New York Label & Box Works continues to grow an effective team, expand upon its quality control, introduce innovative products, and invest heavily in advanced software and hardware. The new Mark Andy press is a testament to New York Label & Box Works’ commitment to growth and excellence in product and service.

Submitted by Elizabeth Anselmo, Sales Training & Development, New York Label & Box Works. Elizabeth can be contacted at Liz@nylabel.com.

In its rich 129-year history, New York Label & Box Works has discovered that its secret to lasting success is to not only provide world-class customer service and advance technologically with the industry, but to also be responsive to shifts in market demand. With a growing global economy that compels brands to advertise in several different languages while still adhering to stringent FDA requirements, today’s cosmetic company requires more printable area on its labels without the hassle of increasing the size of its product. Enter New York Label & Box Works’ Resealable label.

New York Label & Box Works’ research and development team invested nearly a year in the creation of its resealable label. The team tested various inks, stocks, adhesives, and release coatings before arriving at the current construction. New York Label & Box Works maintains that this effort has enabled them to produce the most high quality, efficient, and durable product with a special adhesive between the top and inside panels that permits both easy peel away to open and strong enough adherence to close and remain sealed after multiple references to inside copy. Due to the unique composition of this particular resealable, New York Label & Box Works is currently partnering to obtain a patent with its global paper supplier, UPM Raflatac.

In addition to the reasealable labels, an exceptional offering of New York Label & Box Works is the label and folding carton combination. Drawing from the same state-of-the-art prepress department and digital direct-to-plate technology, this company provides labels and folding cartons that match with accurate repeatability. New York Label & Box Works is headquartered in Islandia, NY with an additional label division in S. Hackensack, NJ, a folding carton division in Ronkonkoma, NY, and a design branch out of Manhattan. For additional information, visit www.since1878.com or contact Liz Anselmo in the Islandia office. Obtain samples and learn more at Booth #1570 at the HBA Global Expo.

Attendees enjoyed breakfast and lunch in the Hamlet's dining room, as well as snacks along the course. In addition, each player received a gift and eligibility in a raffle. While it may have rained on other parts of Long Island, the course remained dry and accommodating.

Pressure-Sensitive Sandwich

The pressure-sensitive product derives its name from the way the adhesive works. Unlike other types of adhesives that form a body with the surface they are applied to through evaporating or absorbing a solvent to form a solid material, pressure-sensitive adhesives stick to the substrate through the use of slight pressure.

The total construction consists of a variety of layers, each with a specific function and purpose. The typical layers include top coating, face stock, primer, adhesive, release coating, release liner, and anti-block coating. For most applications, the material will contain one face stock, adhesive, and release liner. However, in some applications, multiple layers can be added to produce a label on top of a label, or what is called a piggyback product.

Face stock is the term used to describe the label material. It is the portion of the pressure-sensitive construction that will contain the graphics and be applied to the final object. The face stock will always be the layer with the adhesive permanently bonded to it. Face stocks are available in a variety of materials. They can be made from paper, plastic, metal, and specialty materials such as cloth or embossed, metallized foils that give the effect of a prism. The physical requirements of a face stock are dependent on both the end use and converting requirements of the finished label, as well as the need to pull the web through the coater during manufacturing.

Adhesive is the portion that allows the label to adhere to the final object. Adhesives are available in a variety of formulations to provide the desired performance. Pressure-sensitive adhesives are classified in three ways: Coating technology (hot melt, solvent, emulsion), chemistry (rubber-based, acrylic), and the type of adhesive (permanent or removable).

A pressure-sensitive adhesive functions as the name implies. It is generally a soft, viscous material that is sticky to the touch. When applied to a substrate with slight pressure, it will begin to flow into the pores of the surface and develop a specific level of adhesion. Differences in the surfaces of the substrate, the conditions the label is applied under, and the properties of the adhesive will affect the ultimate performance of the label.

Permanent vs. Removable

Pressure-sensitive adhesives may be permanent or removable. A permanent adhesive is designed to adhere to a substrate without edge lifting, which cannot be removed without damaging either the label or the substrate. A removable adhesive is designed to adhere to a substrate without edge lifting, and can be removed without damage to either the label or the substrate.

The definition of a permanent or removable adhesive is clear and understandable; however, classifying an adhesive is not so easy. A variety of factors—including the composition of the substrate, the length of time the label is applied, and the conditions the label is exposed to during its life—affect the performance of the product. In addition, permanence or removablility is a subjective evaluation that can vary from person to person.

In many cases, customers require an adhesive that maintains some short-term ability to be removed before becoming permanent. This is sometimes incorrectly referred to as repositionability, as the label is rarely reapplied. This feature is desirable when labels are misapplied and set aside until, sometimes hours later, it can be removed, and the bottle replaced on the line for processing. The length of time the label remains removable will vary from adhesive to adhesive and from substrate to substrate.

Some adhesives may be further categorized according to special end-use requirements. For example, dairy label adhesives are designed specifically to adhere to polyethylene milk jugs. Freezer-grade adhesives are for substrates that are used on products as cold as -20° F.

Release coating is a material that is applied to the top side of the release liner, which prevents the adhesive from adhering to it. The release coating is a silicone-based material, which is applied either prior to the manufacturing process or in-line with the adhesive coating operation. Release coatings are available in both solvent and solventless versions.

Label application is the process of removing the label from the liner and applying it to the final object. Self-adhesive labels can be applied in a variety of ways. The simplest and sometimes the most practical method is by hand, whereas for high-speed, high-volume applications an automatic applicator may be employed.

Finishing Process

Labels can be finished in rolls, sheets, or fanfolded. As with any printed material, printed labels could be processed in any bindery postpress operations.

Roll labels are often made into master press rolls, which are then run through inspection equipment before packaging into final form. Inspection equipment will wind roll-to-roll, often employing a strobe light and an optical counter to aid the operator. Rewinding can be done either on cores or coreless. Finished rolls of labels can be used manually, or for automatic dispensing. Roll labels can also be placed in dispenser boxes where a label is dispensed by pulling on the liner.

Sheeted labels can be used as inserts to a product, packaged for resale, or for sheet-fed printers. Sheeted labels may be packaged on-press or palletized for later packaging.

Waste around a sheeted label can be removed immediately on press. The critical aspect of sheeted label production is keeping trim and sheeter dust to a minimum. Edge standards need to be established and monitored so that tooling can be replaced when needed.

Fanfolded labels are typically used in a computer printer, where this is the traditional form of print media. Fanfolded labels may also be used in automatic labeling equipment to provide a "non-stop" supply of labels—the lead edge of a fanfolded stack can be taped to the tail edge of the previous stack to extend running.

Most people start out in life with talents and abilities that are just average. Most, who achieve great success in some field, do it by developing their nature talents and abilities to a very high degree in a special area of interest. To get something great out of ourselves, we must work on our special talent or interest.

A person with average inborn attributes and average acquired attributes can still perform at a higher level if they have a very positive mental attitude. What is a positive mental attitude? It is a way of responding to life.

You can tell the type of attitude you have by observing how you react when things go wrong. Your attitude is determined by your expectations. If you expect things to go well, you will have a positive attitude. If you believe something positive is going to happen today, your attitude will be positive and optimistic. You will be primed for success.

Self-Concept
There is a direct relationship between your self-concept and your level of effectiveness. Our self-concept is made up of three parts. The first is your self-ideal. The description of the person you would most like to be. This is made up of all the qualities you like and admire in yourself and other people. High performing men and women have very clear self-ideals toward which they are striving.

The second part of self-concept is your self-image. Self-image is the way you see yourself in your minds eye, and the way you think of yourself minute by minute.
The third part of self-concept is self-esteem. This is how you feel about yourself. It is the foundation quality of high performance and personal effectiveness. Your level of self-esteem is determined by how valuable and competent you feel.

While current economic conditions and implications of 9/11 have combined to create pessimism in the printing industry, how we react can greatly affect the outcome. Will you be positive and take responsibility during tough times or will you cave into challenges? The choice is yours.

Through its 129-year history, New York Label has evolved to stay current in an ever-changing marketplace. With any advancement, there comes a point where a company must decide what to bring forward and what to leave behind. Relying on positive results of comprehensive research, the growing Quality Team at New York Label has decided to carry forward the Deming philosophy it has referenced for a number of years. With the guidance of Kelly Allan’s team, New York Label hopes to continue to improve quality and production, and continue to provide and improve upon its great customer service.

One method of delighting the customer that has yielded motivating results is New York Label's dedication to evolving technologically with the industry. Through steady investments in state-of-the-art equipment and continual research and development, New York Label has remained, throughout the years, current and able to deliver new and custom high-quality products to its valued customers. Coupled with this devotion to development, New York Label's customer-centric attitude takes an "ear to the pavement" approach, always receptive and sensitive to customer needs to steer the direction of its research.

Technological advances have not only allowed New York Label to grow and serve; on a global scale, advances in technology have fostered business growth around the world. More and more frequently, companies are expanding their target markets to span several countries and ethnicities, translating to a growing necessity for multi-lingual packaging. In addition, governmental labeling requirements have also left marketers with an overwhelming task of somehow squeezing more information onto a printed piece than both aesthetics and dimensions allow for.

Enter extended content labels. These multi-seal, multi-paneled labels allow for overflowing information to be printed on the inside of a label, giving the consumer the ability to easily access inside panel information and reseal for future reference. In typical New York Label fashion, the company rose to the occasion to develop and produce this highly coveted product.

New York label was well versed in multi-seal technology when approached by a long-time client inquiring about fitting additional information on a fixed sized label. This client had a responsibility to provide its consumers with required FDA information and desired also to add multilingual information to its labels as an expanding market called for it; however, the given size of their labels did not physically permit this.

Having already been producing multi-seal labels for a number of years at this point, New York Label was not only able to suggest a simple and appealing solution, its savvy Research and Development team was able to custom tailor the labels to fit the client's specific adhesive and construction parameters.

It was a win-win situation for client and vendor, a situation familiar to clients of New York Label who have grown to rely on New York Label?s innovative team to help make their projects work.

We proudly offer full service package printing with graphic design, labels and folding cartons. One stop shopping for all of your packaging needs! Let us help you by providing “brand consistency” with your labels and folding cartons.

I am enclosing some recently printed samples for your review. Check out our website and call Karen Cavanaugh at 631-467-6500 ext. 101 for further information or to set up an appointment. Don’t forget to ask us about our limited time only rebate incentives to all new customers…

Thanks, we look forward to working with you on all your packaging needs!!

Learning to handle defeat and setback is a key factor in the success of your career. Absolutely no printing business goes through its life without setbacks. The secret is to learn from mistakes and spend as little time as possible lamenting them. When a setback hits, your first reaction is to become emotionally upset-often so much so that you fail to learn the lesson that every defeat contains.

Lessons from the Sky

Printing industry executives can learn a valuable lesson from another familiar industry: air travel. Everyone knows the often-quoted fact that air traffic is the safest form of long distance travel; however, you also all know that air accidents occur. How the airlines and FAA react to these unfortunate accidents is what printers could stand to learn from. Teams of experts piece together the causes of the accident and months of intensive study are devoted to finding solutions to any mistakes that may have been made so similar accidents do not occur in the future. The result is that even though more flights are flying into more airports, the safety record of the airlines continues to improve.

There are countless examples in the printing industry of the benefits of this approach to setbacks. The message is clear: before discouragement sets in, before your negative channels take over, examine your situation. Look at the setback as objectively as you can. Learn from your mistakes. Have the courage to face your setbacks, and the resolve to do something about them. Make up your mind to learn something from every setback.

It is not easy to close out your emotions when things are not going well. Remember that defeat is a state of mind. One of the best tools to use against negative emotions and thoughts that go along with setbacks is persistence.

The American Inventor

If you persevere and continue to believe in yourself, your business model, and your people, you can overcome any obstacle. The next time you experience difficulties or a setback of some kind in your printing company, think of Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison is credited with being one of America's most persistent scientists and inventors. He conducted literally thousands of experiments before he perfected the electric light bulb. He tried out almost every substance known to science before he hit on the one that would work for his light bulb's filaments. Thomas Edison combined persistence with experimentation. He persisted in his goal to develop a working electrical light, but he made that persistence pay off by blending it with experiments. When one idea failed to bear fruit, he backed off, examined his setbacks, and tried again with something different. Persistence, blended with experimentation, yields success.

Thoughts are magnetic. As soon as you tell yourself that you are beaten and negative thoughts are drafted, then each of these thoughts helps convince you that you are wiped. Instead, believe that there is a way to solve any problem. Positive thoughts will flood your mind to help you find the solution. It is the belief that there is a way that is important. You are what you think you are. By managing your thoughts, you can take a large step toward success.

Here is another anecdote: Two young men, born 18 months apart, had a father who spent a lot of time in prison for robbing and stealing. A study was conducted on young men in America, and these two men were interviewed because of how they were born and raised. When one of these men was interviewed, he was in prison, as well, for stealing. The reporter asked, "How did you end up this way?" He responded, "Well just look at my father, what did you expect?" The other man interviewed was working in a hospital, on his internship to become a doctor and the reporter asked him the same question, "How did you end up this way?" The man responded, "Well just look at my father, what did you expect?" This exemplifies the power of positive thinking.

Another article, "Killed by 30 years of Thought," about tennis star Jem Gilbert, teaches much of the same. When Jem was a little girl, she went with her mother to the dentist. The mother, while being operated on by the dentist, had a heart attack and died in the dentist's chair. From that day on, Jem would not go to the dentist.

While the dentist had nothing to do with her mother's death, as it was her bad heart that was the cause, for 30 years, Jem avoided the dentist because she believed that as soon as she went, she would have a heart attack and die. Finally, her teeth got so bad that she had to go to the dentist. She brought along her minister, doctor, best friend, and sister. The minute the dentist put that drill to her teeth, she died of a heart attack. The obituary read, "She died of 30 years of thought-she died of 30 years of the contemplation of disaster." While this is an extreme case, examine your own life. What are you thinking now? What have you been contemplating? How you respond to them defines your character, the quality of your life, and how successful you will be in your career.

Therefore, while the current economic conditions and the implications of 9/11 have combined to create some pessimism in the printing industry, how you react can greatly affect the outcome. Will you be positive during tough times or will you cave in to the challenges? The choice is yours.

The test, which involved about 165,000 students at almost 300 area schools during the second half of the 2005 school year, experimented with different flavors, marketing programs, and milk cartons using one through four-color flexographic and four-color offset printing to determine what products were most popular with children.

If you applied these findings nationally, the results would translate into 600 million more unit sales of milk each year, which works out to 11 more units of milk for each student each year.

A good box and label vendor understands that the success of its client's product is directly related to the quality of the packaging.

The test determined that enhanced packaging could significantly increase school milk sales. The flexo printed cartons helped boost sales a few percent higher than the offset cartons, and the one-color old style carton actually showed a one percent sales decline. When you add that in terms of cost (offset was more expensive than flexography), you see how beneficial it can be to use flexography for your packaging.

Flexography (flexo) is a popular process used to print packaging materials. Flexo is used to print milk and beverage cups and containers, folding cartons, multiwall sacks, plastic bags, labels, tapes, envelopes, newspapers, and wrappers.

In a typical flexo printing sequence, the substrate is fed into the press from a roll. The substrate is pulled through a series of stations or print units, die cutting stations, and finishing stations, all inline so that in most cases you start off with clean paper at the beginning of the press and find a finished product at the other end. One reason that flexography presses are used for boxes is because flexographic presses are capable of producing great quality packaging on many different substrates at the least expensive cost.

A wide variety of boxes are manufactured utilizing flexo technology. Ranging from the typical corrugated box, which is manufactured on a conventional flexo folder-gluer press, to the world of auto-lock bottom boxes, as well as four- and six-corner trays, displays and the like; all can be manufactured on highly sophisticated multi-color flexo presses.

Find the Perfect Match

Print buyers understand that the time and resources required to obtain matching labels and cartons can be excessive. Most often the challenge lies in the fact that the label printer is different from the carton printer, using entirely different manufacturing processes.

You can experience the benefits of a streamlined prepress department for both cartons and labels. Some firms draw from the same state-of-the-art prepress equipment and experienced technical staff so there is no guesswork involved in producing labels and cartons that match. You can take comfort in knowing that the same technology will be used to prepare your cartons and labels; guaranteeing consistency in branding.

Just as a better quality milk carton with enhanced graphics can greatly improve sales, the right packaging sells a product. A good box and label vendor understands that the success of its client's product is directly related to the quality of the packaging.

Due in part to new government regulations and market demands, products must boast more information on a label than in the past. Copy space is rapidly diminishing as labels are cluttered with regulatory, multilingual, instructional, and promotional information. With this constant stream of new required information, labels are running out of space.

To adhere to more stringent and specific listings of contents, more verbiage and larger text sizes are required. Government agencies are calling for more information to be on a label, which in turn decreases the possible room for the advertising portion. Sales information is often decreased in size or left off entirely because it has been displaced by required legal copy.

There is ever more need for multi-lingual instructions, especially for those companies looking to expand internationally. Major retailers in the United States are actively pushing to add Spanish and other translations to their labels to reach out to the multi-lingual sectors within this country and beyond. More than likely, this trend will spread as the Spanish and other speaking populations in the United States continue to grow and emerge as powerful buying segments. In many cases, the additional copy space required is more than the conventional label can accommodate. What is a manufacturer to do in this situation?

There is no doubt that manufacturers need more real estate on their labels. An economical option is to use extended content labels. An extended content label is achieved through a unique manufacturing process where multiple pages with a pressure sensitive base are available to reveal additional product information to the consumer. Extended content labels are available in many different looks and constructions.

The most popular copy expansion label is called a booklet label. It is comprised of a booklet or pamphlet married to a pressure sensitive label. There are many other types of extended content labels—multi-seal, onserts, foldout labels, and multi-page labels. Do not be confused by the names; they essentially do the same thing—provide more space on the label.

Creating Space

There are many benefits of extended content labels. They allow unlimited pages for required information in a compact area. Adding pictures or illustrations to product directions is a great way to increase the chances that a product will be used correctly. By expanding copy space, you gain freedom to tell your customers more about your product. An extended content label can eliminate the need for an outer printed box, a separate back label, neck hanger, auxiliary pamphlets, booklets, instruction sheets, or sleeve labels, greatly decreasing packaging expenses.

These labels can be printed on a wide variety of substrates and printed in multiple colors, including four-color process. They can be applied to products by hand and with standard automatic labeling equipment. Just about every market has a need for extended content labels. These markets include but are not limited to: cosmetics, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and agricultural.

Offering new products is an excellent way to increase sales. Labels are everywhere. Walk up and down the aisles of your local grocery store or home improvement center and you will see products with labels of every imaginable size, shape, and color.

In today's marketplace, where one-stop shopping and customized pieces are commonplace requirements, specialty-printing applications, and specifically labels, are a lucrative opportunity available to printers.

While the world is shrinking through multiple channels of communication, the demand for more information for the consumer is expanding. Extended content labels are an excellent way to produce an attractive label that has all the information you need. A picture is worth a thousand words, and now it is easy to fit them all onto your label.

Yet, in your daily dealings with banks, stores, and some vendors, you are often left feeling that service, and even common courtesy, have taken a backseat to other business interests. If, for example, your credit card company really understood the importance of personal service, why would it install a voice mail system that does not provide the option of speaking with a live person right away, if at all? Or, if the local post office understood customer service, would it allow the staff to take lunch at the same time that you do?

Sooner or later, we all find ourselves wondering what has happened to good customer service—the lifeblood of any business. You can offer promotions and slash prices to attract many new customers, but it will not have a lasting impact unless accompanied by excellent service.

Selfless Thinking

One thing all companies that give great service have in common is that they have a genuine client-focused attitude. These firms view customer service as the most important part of their job. The very best companies in America are built on the philosophy that the customer is always right. In "In Search of Excellence," Tom Peters wrote, "the very best companies, and the very best people in those companies, have an obsession with customer service."

Worldwide, the most successful companies are those for whom the customer is king or queen, and customer satisfaction is the driving force of all activities. All decisions are made with the customer in mind. When these companies discuss products and services, they always ask themselves, "What would our customers be thinking if they were sitting here listening to us? What would the customers say? Would they approve or disapprove of our plans?"

The very best companies are committed to treating their customers well. For example, Walt Disney hires thousands of college students to work at its theme parks each summer. These students are hired mid-May and are trained for six weeks, and then only work eight weeks before returning to school.

When Disney representatives were asked why the students receive such rigorous training relative to their length of assignment, they explain that students are drilled in their positions to the point where they can perform their tasks without even thinking. The aim is to allow students to be able to pay more attention to the guests. Because the students memorize their jobs completely, and can execute them routinely, they are more conscious of the things they can do to please the visitors who have chosen to visit a Disney theme park.

The best companies invariably have the best people. These firms discovered that the people working for them would determine their success. If a business is run by good managers who treat their staff well, you, the customer, are in turn treated well. If an employee of a company treats you poorly, you can bet you are receiving the same type of treatment that person is receiving from his or her manager.

Worldwide, the most successful companies are those for whom the customer is king or queen, and customer satisfaction is the driving force of all activities.

People are primarily emotional in their actions. This is why caring is a critical element in successful customer service and selling. You may have heard it said, "people do not care how much we know, until they know how much we care." It is also true that the more you love your work, the more caring you will be. The more committed people are to your company, and to your products and services, the more they will naturally care about pleasing your customers. Ultimately, the more you honestly care about customers, the more concerned you will be about helping them make the right buying decisions.

Fielding Complaints

Customer complaints are like medicine: Nobody likes them, but they make us better. They can also be like preventive medicine, because they provide advance warning about problems. When your customers are upset, they typically want two things—to express their feelings and to have the problem solved. Some customer service people may view customers' venting as a waste of time, because they want to move on and solve the problem; however, trying to resolve a situation without first listening to a customer's feelings rarely works. For the most part, it is only after your customer has sufficiently vented that he or she can hear what you have to say.

Business is becoming increasingly more complex and fast-paced. Customer service professionals have to know their products and services, their company information and the technology that supports it, and how to communicate all of this to savvy, demanding customers. Even a small gap in knowledge or skill could cause harmful repercussions in terms of lost business.

Giving great customer service when everything is going well is easy. The real test of your service quality is how well you handle things when the going gets tough. How you handle a problem situation with a customer will determine whether or not he or she will continue to deal with your company in the future.

When you or your company makes a mistake in any area, listen to your customer's complaints. By making the appropriate corrections, you can help recover any respect, confidence, or faith that may have been lost. Customer complaints are never easy to hear; however, if you shift from being defensive to opportunistic, complaints can become your best friend, helping you to learn and grow as individuals and successful business people. If you do not listen, rest assured the financial statement will communicate the news eventually.

Getting Great Customer Service

1. Answer the phone with a greeting before identifying yourself or your company. This starts the conversation off right.
2. Become aware of your facial expressions when a client approaches you. A smile (even when on the phone) works much better than a grimace.
3. Do not take it personally when a customer complains. A complaint is an opportunity to get valuable feedback from your clients. You will listen better if you do not feel threatened.
4. Always offer options when you cannot give customers exactly what they want.

It Pays to Please

1. You will spend 10 percent more for the same product with better service.
2. When you receive good service, you tell nine to 12 people.
3. When you receive poor service, you tell up to 20 people.
4. An 82 percent chance exists that customers will repurchase from a company they had a complaint with if their complaint was handled quickly and pleasantly.
5. If the service is poor, 91 percent of retail customers will not return.

One product line many printers and brokers are adding is custom, pressure-sensitive labels or stickers. For printers already providing business cards, magazines, stationery, portfolios, and other printed products, it is a no-brainer to offer labels, as well. Label customers often have characteristics similar to those of an existing customer base, so in addition to attracting new business, this new revenue stream can also help develop present accounts.

According to a recent study, U.S. label shipments will grow 5.7 percent annually through the year 2008 based on new label technologies, substrates, adhesives, and coatings. The value of the North American pressure-sensitive label market in 1998 was $3.93 billion. According to the Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute, by 2003, the market reached more than $5 billion with a compounded annual growth of 6.4 percent. More then 98 percent of distributors expect their custom label sales to increase, as well.

Label printing is no longer a craft industry. Continuously developing and evolving, it has become a sophisticated collection of technologies, using a wide range of papers, films, and foil substrates; complex adhesive and ink formulations; sophisticated digital designs; and reproduction formats. The printing is achieved by many different processes in both sheet and roll formats with complex die-cutting solutions, and ever more creative methods of application.

Mixing It Up
New products can be the answer to building sales and transitioning your company in a whole new direction. You can take a cue from big business. Look at how Kraft added Jell-O instant pudding and multiple permutations of the Jell-O brand in order to capture new audiences and expand into previously untapped market niches. It all starts with the addition of a new line.

Think of Gillette as another example. The brand encompasses a number of product lines, including blades and razors, toiletries, writing instruments, and lighters. Individual products exist within each of these product lines. In other words, Gillette's line of blades and razors extends to Lady Gillette, Mach 3, and others. This gives Gillette a wide and diverse product mix, and a share of the profits of those various markets.

Stuck on You
Labels are everywhere. Walk up and down the aisles of your local grocery store or home improvement center and you will see products with labels of every imaginable size, shape, and color. Custom labels are a growth segment of the printing industry, and your clients already purchase them. Break away from selling a commodity. Labels are typically considered critical to a product's success or are an important requirement for meeting federal, state, or local regulations. Your customers will be looking for a value-added product from a knowledgeable and reliable vendor, not just the lowest price.

As a trade, the printing industry has some high growth markets, and some that are mature or declining. Labels belong to the high growth segment. Selling labels gives you the opportunity to increase your revenue and position yourself for continued sales growth.

Diversify within accounts by establishing relationships with key decision makers. The contacts you establish may be outside the purchasing department. You will work with product decision makers, and will gain a reputation as a problem solver, not an order taker. These same decision makers can have a great deal of influence on purchases of all types of printed materials.

The relationships you form while selling labels will give you a definite advantage when bidding on all of your customer's printing requirements. Increase the value of your average order. The average wholesale order of forms, stationery, or business cards is approximately $200. The average wholesale order for labels is more than $1,000.

Tips to Sell Labels
Study Labels
Market yourself as a label specialist. Ask to see the label in action, watching the label move throughout the organization so you can make recommendations. Who is using the label? What is it used for? What is the surface? What environmental factors exist in its application and subsequent use? Today?s labels are versatile and dynamic, and selling them requires a detail-oriented mindset. Although you can rely on manufacturers for help, you will need extensive knowledge of label stocks, adhesives, and secondary printing methods. Determining a label?s use and the conditions it will be exposed to is paramount.

Watch New Technologies
What areas of the market are new? Which areas are growing? What new substrates and adhesives are there?

Make Labels a Marketing Tool
Labels are usually used for informational purposes, but do not forget their potential as marketing tools to increase your client's product appeal.

Aim To Please
Satisfaction is achieved by adding value for your customer. Be a salesperson who researches new ideas for your client's look through new face stocks, adhesives, and constructions that will improve the label. Become a consultant. Pitch yourself to the right person. Some purchasing agents do not like to change vendors, but a manufacturing director or someone who uses the labels will.

Take It for a Test Drive
Once you have chosen a label, test it and observe its performance during every step of the process. Make sure you have the right face, liner, and adhesive type. Get samples and test them at the customer's facility, on the customer's equipment, so he or she feels comfortable with the decision.

Some clients who do not understand the label selection process may rush you. Help them to understand that a rushed job usually creates expensive blunders. Label projects can be time consuming, but once the project is up and running all you have to do is supply the order.

Distributors often say label orders are easier to keep than some other forms of print because effective applications are extremely labor intensive and most end users are not interested in testing new labels; even if it means saving money.

Provide Great Customer Service
Sell a label your customers can "stick with." Label end users often need fast answers to their label dilemmas. A plant nursery owner whose price labels fade in the sunlight is likely to treat his label vendor like a weed. By understanding your customer's needs, as in fade-resistant inks, you can prevent problems from occurring.

Team Up with Reliability
If you are going to risk the reputation you have with your customers, you need to do it with a great supplier of pressure-sensitive labels.

Speak to your customers. Do research to evaluate whether adding labels to your existing product mix is beneficial to you. Consider that nearly every industry uses labels. They perform a broad range of functions including identification, merchandising, marketing, and information transfer. If you do your homework and proceed with an analytical eye, adding labels to your present product line will increase your annual sales, profits, and help your growing print business reach new markets and build market share.

L.P. Thebault Company received the KODAK Technology Application Award for production of a BURBERRY men/s clothing catalog. The Parsippany, N.J., company used a combination of conventional screening and KODAK STACCATO screening to print on an uncoated, textured stock to create a soft look for earth toned fabrics and sharp and bold colors for accessories. Kodak and the AGC credited L.P. Thebault and Burberry for clearly understanding the value of collaboration and for applying the right technologies for the right job.

New York Label & Box Corporation of Islandia, N.Y., received the KODAK Advanced Technology Recognition Award for the production of a pressure sensitive label for ROLAIDS Soft Chews. The Long Island label and tag printer used KODAK HYPERFLEX Ready Imaging Software and KODAK MAXTONE hybrid screening to eliminate the highlight break often associated with flexo printing. HYPERFLEX Ready Imaging Software and MAXTONE hybrid screening allowed the creation of smooth vignettes while eliminating excess waste on setup. The AGC and Kodak noted that New York Label's use of screening technologies reduced creative limitations and led to greater shelf appeal.

Kodak is pleased to join with the AGC in honoring these two technology savvy graphic communications companies," said Kevin Joyce, Managing Director, United States and Canada Region, and Vice President, Graphic Communications Group (GCG). "As these award winners show, print providers have new ways to partner with their customers and to strengthen their customer relationships."

Kodak presented the awards at 11 a.m. May 11 at 245 Park Ave. in New York City.

“We are set up as a one-stop shop,” says Christopher Freddo, vice president of sales, “from blank labels to four color process that rivals offset. The higher end has really made us different and now our focus is on faster and more reliable delivery.”

Printing technology at New York Label moved entirely to flexography in 1984. Prior to that, the company had printed using both the offset and letterpress methods. But “prior” doesn’t begin to tell the story: New York Label has been in business for 126 years, and has been owned and operated by one family — the Haedrichs — since 1930. The leaders today are Frederick Haedrich and his son Steven.

The New York Label & Box Works opened its doors in Manhattan in 1878, supplying offset printed boxes and labels for local pharmacies. It moved to Bayshore in 1985 and to Islandia in 1995. In 1993 the Haedrichs formed New Jersey Label, across the Hudson River from Manhattan in Englewood, which operates in a 16,000 square foot plant. The two shops operate independently, but combined annual revenue is in the $12 million range.

About 70 percent of New York Label’s business is through distributors, printers, and brokers — 3,000 of them. The rest is direct sales handled by Freddo and his team of sales experts. Sales are mostly regional, he says, “although we have a great customer in Los Angeles — have had him for years — who likes our quality and delivery.”

Lately, the management of New York Label has been looking west and south. “We are in the early stages of planning satellite facilities in the US,” Freddo says. “Chicago is on our radar, and so is Florida.”

A significant contributor to the impetus behind the continental expansion is found in one of the prepress rooms in Islandia. Two years ago the company decided to switch from conventional platemaking to computer-to-plate (CTP) technology. That, Freddo says, has changed everything.

“What really advanced our quality are the Creo and DuPont prepress software and platemaking systems. With the Creo front end we have increased quality, lowered waste, and can make plates so much faster. In the old days, if we had a serious six-color job with a two-hour setup, and then we found that one plate was bad, we would lose hours waiting for the new plate. Those days are history.

Specifically, the systems and equipment that get folks at New York Label so fired up are Creo’s Prinergy Powerpack prepress management system, Creo’s Thermoflex 2630 CTP device, and DuPont’s FAST plate processing hardware. Use of these has eliminated solvent plate manufacture and hours of drying time.

Samoy Davis inspects labels on the Web Techniques rewinder. “A lot of our customers are offset printers,” Freddo observes, “and they understand what this high-end prepress technology means; they’re familiar with it. When they learned that we were going that way, it certainly helped. To be the only label company around here with this system is a real plus to our customers.

“For many of our customers in this area, fast turnaround is a critical requirement,” he adds. “We have a dedicated press and a rewinder here for only rush jobs. Being far ahead with prepress technology was certainly the right move to make.” For a small charge, the company offers a delivery guarantee. “Our press downtime is minimal,” Freddo says. “It makes such a difference in customer satisfaction.”

Joe McComski and Damaris Rodriguez check a job on a Webtron 650. In its Long Island plant, New York Label runs six Webtron 650 presses, three 10" Mark Andy 2200s (six- and 10-color), and a 16" Mark Andy 4150 six-color. Cold foil stamping is offered. (The New Jersey company operates three Mark Andy presses.) Rotary tooling — the shop has an inventory of 7,000 dies — is from RotoMetrics and Preston Engravers, and includes flexible dies. The in-plant ink lab works with inks from American Water Graphics; a computerized ink dispensing system was installed last week. Anilox rolls are from Harper; label stocks are predominantly from Raflatac, MACtac and Fasson, Freddo says. Rewind and inspection are performed on equipment from Web Techniques, PC Industries and Rotoflex.

The company is looking forward to delivery of a new machine, purchased at Labelexpo in Chicago this year: a Mark Andy LP3000 press with 10 flexo print stations and two Stork screenprinting units.

Plate evolution changes speed, quality, consistency
Anthony Masotti, the prepress manager at New York Label, runs a department of seven people. Their world changed a couple of years ago when they decided to move away from conventional plate production and take on CTP. In January 2003 the company completed the installation of a Creo Thermoflex 2630 and the Prinergy Powerpack prepress software, along with plate processing via DuPont’s FAST system.

“Our plan was to start with spot colors, and to train one operator at a time on the new equipment,” Masotti says. “We figured the training would take between six and nine months.” Wrong guess. “By April, three months later, we had all jobs running through the new system. The benefits are too great.”

Masotti says that the solvent wash platemaking process used in the old days would take up to four hours for successful production of plates. “Now, from layout to finished cut plates is between 60 and 75 minutes. Gone are the man-hours, the chemicals, the maintenance, the slow speed, and the environmental concerns. And we have reduced our prepress vendor list from four pages to one.”

The technology, he adds, provides “a nice color latitude. We now can make color density changes with a change in plate impression, instead of changing anilox rolls. And there is no variation: We have higher quality and more consistency in our plates. And the advances in software, what we call Hyperscreen, allow us to print a vignette to a zero dot.”

Because its customer base is so varied, New York Label converts for many markets. The food industry is big in Long Island, as is the vitamin business. Others include promotional, health and beauty, entertainment toy and cosmetic. “Most of it is prime label,” Freddo says, “and about 25 percent is really high end.” In the near future, he adds, the company will pursue flexible packaging and folding carton markets.

At work on a Mark Andy press For years, New York label has adhered to the management and manufacturing principles set forth by W. Edwards Deming and recently Six Sigma. “We are very much into Dr. Deming’s philosophy,” Freddo says. “It is a must in a manufacturing climate.” The Deming philosophy, formulated a half century ago, aims to cultivate a more efficient workplace and increased productivity.

Educating customers in the changing capabilities of the company is a major undertaking at New York Label. The company advertises itself biweekly in Printing News, and sends out monthly postcards and samples to its customers, informing them of advances in technologies. “We also have four major events each year, including a golf tournament. This year we had almost a hundred customers at the golf outing. We have had cocktail parties and open houses, at which we talk about the new things that we are doing.”

Taking care of employees is just as important at the company. A profit sharing plan is in place for the 75 New York employees and the 12 in New Jersey. “The management team treats people with respect,” Chris Freddo says. “We promote from within, and we have very low turnover.

“To compete for today’s customers, we must have the technology, well trained people, quality the first time, and on-time delivery.”

Making the cover is a credit to the company's vast accomplishments, specifically the development of its U.V. printing capabilities. Shown in the cover photo are labels that have been printed by New York Label with Ultra-Violet flexographic inks. The article outlines a "checklist" of variables that a flexographic printer might encounter when delving into this challenging new technology, as well as solutions to address these variables.

Although the company had their first U.V. flexographic printing press installed in June, 1998, they didn't officially offer it as a service until January of 1999. The reason is simple: "Any new technology has to undergo research and development stages in order to be 100% certain that it works, before we can ever offer it to our customers," states lead U.V. press operator Kevin Wasner. Asked how he feels about the recognition, he replies, "As a pressman, having some of my work on the cover of Flexo is like a being a rock star on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. It's the premier magazine in the industry."

Why would printers invest in this cutting-edge technology? The article identifies benefits such as reduced highlight dot gain, consistent color stability throughout the press run (both of which result result in fewer operator adjustments), and more mileage from the ink, to name just a few advantages. In this day when variuos printing companies are rapidly changing, and adopting techniques from each other, U.V. flexo will certainly develop into a universally accepted process. The need from the print buyer for higher, more consistent quality is sure to drive its growth. 

"No-Label" Look
An increasing application for UV is the "no-label" look, which allows the flexo printer to provide a product comparable to rotary silkscreen at a much lower price. As an example, consider the shampoo bottles where the product shows through the clear label. Some also have an attractive four-color-process image reverse-printed on the back label so that it shows through the product, with copy on the opposite side. In the past, the front label was always done by more expensive processes, such as rotary silkscreen, while the back was a difficult process for flexography because you had to print on clear, then marry white stock to it, then print on the white stock.

By printing UV inks on clear stock, you can achieve an ink film with an opacity similar to that produced by other processes. Also, in the case of the back label, the same look can be achieved by printing process in mirror image, which, by the way, also requires reversing the order of the ink. For example, if you run yellow, magenta, cyan then black, just reverse that sequence. Next, you print a flood coat of white on top of that, then print your line copy as a positive. The end result is a product that is very close to that produced by other printing disciplines, but at a substantially lower cost. One reason for the lower cost is a reduction in the amount of press time required to complete the job. Rotary silkscreen, for example, has to be run a lot slower than flexo. Keep in mind that the advantages gained by the opacity can also be applied to other stocks, such as foil.

Better Dot Structure/Reduced Gain
The viscosities of UV inks tend to be higher than those of waterbased inks. This ultimately results in sharper, crisper dots and reduced dot gain, especially in the highlight areas. If you're used to printing 10-percent highlights, a highlight of 3 or 4 percent will be a welcomed improvement. The tendency for the infamous "halo" dot is also nearly eliminated. Overall, you will be producing a halftone with sharper edges than that of even offset. The reduced fluctuation in the printed product, combined with markedly less on-press maintenance, allows you to have greater control of your process. Better still, UV inks will not evaporate, meaning you won't have to kick in as many additives to maintain the inks on press. Not only does that reduce cost, but any time you eliminate variables such as the addition of water, ammonia or other additives, you increase reliability and consistency. Now a word or two about consistency. . .

Consistency is what we all hope to achieve in our printing. Consistency leads to a more cost-effective operation and is a word we can sell to our customers. And it is a fact that greater consistency can be achieved through UV inks. Why? Fewer variables! There is no evaporation on press, and no false body when off press and on the shelf. No pH adjustments are necessary, which means you can get rid of those ammonia additives. Finally, you will not need to make viscosity adjustments due to instability from evaporation or press heat. To prove these benefits, monitor a long run on a spot-color job. You'll be amazed at the results. These benefits are even more appealing on a process run, where you have four colors to worry about. In short, color shifts can easily occur as a result of myriad variables, including impression, doctor blade, evaporation, pH, viscosity and press speed. And as we all know, with flexo, the more variables that can be eliminated, the better.

Process versus Spot Colors
Many UV-ink manufacturers are able to produce process colors that can run on aniloxes with higher screen counts; ranging from 700 to 1200. In the case of UV spot colors, the manufacturers have so far only been able to provide color strength on lower aniloxes, ranging from 200 to 500. This has a lot to do with the need for photoinitiators in the ink and available room for pigments.

Now, because your spot colors have to run on lower-line aniloxes, your halftone line screen is limited. All things considered, you're probably better off running your spot colors with waterbased inks. When possible, try running your process colors as UV, with your spot colors as water. You can then run higher screens for both inks.

The up-front costs for a switch to UV will undoubtedly be high. Aside from investing in UV lamps, you will I also need improved airflow systems in your pressroom. Suffice it to say, your electric bill will also be much higher. But these costs can be recouped once production begins. As discussed earlier, you don't have to worry about evaporation with UV inks. Thus, you can leave the inks in the press overnight. This benefit alone will probably save you one or two hours in setup and cleanup. Imagine the savings you can realize with an extra hour or two of uptime each day. And while per-pound ink costs for UV inks are greater than waterbased inks, the extended mileage achieved from the UV inks will again offset the additional expense. Ultimately, the quality improvements and reduced usage and labor over the long run will more than outweigh the initial cash investment.

Hit the Books!
One way to cut down on the conversion costs is to do some research. Talk to suppliers to make sure you purchase the right equipment for your needs. Every press manufacturer will tout its UV press as the best on the market, but you may want to inspect the ink pans. Some UV inks are very viscous and require pans of special shapes. One press manufacturer provides pans that angle down where the anilox reaches the bottom. This improves flow and is a must when using thick ink. You may also want to choose a press with stations that can be set up with either UV or drying units. This would provide the versatility to switch back and forth between waterbased and UV.

Selecting the proper anilox is also a tricky issue. UV spot colors lack the color strength to run on higher-line aniloxes, such as those in the range of 600 to 700. On the other hand, UV process can run on aniloxes up to 1200 and still have strength. Keep in mind that you need more volume in your aniloxes for UV than for water inks, because of the high photoinitiator component. So, with anilox volumes, the higher screen count you use, the less volume is available. For example, if you are using a 900-linescreen anilox, you are limited in volume, since there is only enough room for pigment and photo-initiator. This is why you lack color strength on spot colors and have to go to a lowerscreen/higher-volume anilox. Now, if you're running spot colors with line screens of 133, for example, multiply that by four to determine minimal anilox screen, and you would need an anilox of about 550-600 lpi to keep the screen open and reduce dot gain. Unfortunately, UV inks cannot match color strength on most spot colors when using higher-line aniloxes. Indeed, to achieve color on UV spot colors, New York Label has had to use 360 and 440 lpi aniloxes. As a rule of thumb, UV anilox volumes will probably have to be about 30 to 40 percent greater than comparable waterbased aniloxes to achieve similar densities. As a note of reference, remember to use your UV aniloxes solely for UV applications - do not alternate between water and uv. The ammines in the waterbased ink tend to react with the UV in the cells, potentially destroying the anilox.

Watch Your Stock!
Dust will become a problem when using paper stocks with UV Every paper stock has some amount of paper dust associated with it. There is also a certain degree of dust present in the air. With waterbased inks, you're able to hide or cover the dust as you print. This is much more difficult to do with uv, and may require investment in a vacuum system and/or a more effective airflow system. To cut down on the expense involved in solving the dust problem, you may opt to set up your UV presses in a room of their own.

Another concern is making sure your plates and inks are compatible. The easiest way to ensure this is to send a sample of the ink to your plate manufacturer. Alternatively, you could also do a 24-hour soak test. Simply take an exposed plate and soak it in the ink for 24 hours. Remove the plate and measure it with a micrometer to see if it has swelled. If it has, it's probably incompatible and will result in dirty printing and increased dot gain.

Finally, you must absolutely remember to make sure that all lights in your pressroom are fitted with UV ftlters. Failure to do so could lead to the inks curing right in the pans, or worse, in the cells of your anilox, which could easily destroy the rolls. It's also a good idea to cover your ink pans when they're not in use to keep out dust and outside lights.

A transition to UV flexo is not without its bumps, the largest of which will be the startup cost. However, with careful planning, communication, and a wise spending plan, you have the ability to place your company on the leading edge of this rapidly improving process. You'll be able to provide a better product, enjoy greater long-term profitability and advance the technology of the flexo industry. Speaking from experience, the results we've achieved using UV in our work at New York Label have been nothing short of fantastic. If you're not into UV yet, I would highly recommend giving it serious consideration.

This coveted award is presented annually to an outstanding member of the corporate community for its significant contributions to the Long Island economy. Out of 800 HIA members submitting applications, New York Label was chosen after extensive evaluation, and excelled in every criteria, such as contributions to the economic viability of Long Island, educational advancement, positive employer/employee relations and socially responsible activities. Also noted were New York Label's industry leadership, technical breakthroughs and scientific advancement demonstrated by their innovations in the digital proofing, production, and turnaround of high-quality labels and tags. "We are very proud of this prestigious award," says Steven Haedrich, New York Label's President.

New York Label will be honored by the association on May 11, 1999 at the Long Island Marriott and will be presented with the award by Suffolk County Executive Robert Gaffney.]]> New York Label, the northeast's leading supplier of labels and tags, has announced the installation and development of their U.V. flexo ink program. It is designed for higher prime label applications. The advantages of the new U.V. ink system are cleaner, sharper printed dots, more accurate color prediction, brighter highlights and the ability to reproduce vignettes without the minimum drop-off commonly associated with flexographic printing.

This cutting-edge press technology complements their industry-leading prepress department that includes Kodak Approvals, spectraphotometers, densitometers, inline imaging and processing and inline platemaking.

The article illustrates how the company's unique business philosophy, efficient systems and process optimization have fueled their extraordinary growth. "From design, prepress and printing this company is an ideal one-stop-shop."

Especially noteworthy is how through these systems, New York Label's four-color process market share has increased by over 600% in two years. The article explains how they can turn these orders into printed products within just three to five days. That's pretty impressive, since the industry average is two to three weeks.

You're mistaken if you think the quality suffers. In fact, the main focus of their efforts is improved quality. As it turns out, this allows them to be more efficient and deliver a premium product of up to 200-line screen, rivaling that of offset.

The article asks how it is possible for the company to successfully transform itself into an industry leader in such a short period of time. The answer, says New York Label President Steven Haedrich, is, "Invest . . . in people, technology, education, and always anticipate your customers' needs. We have a quality program that focuses on the customer and efficient systems, not just on numbers."

"We are extremely proud of the customer-focused company that we have built here," states New York Label Vice President Christopher Freddo. "It is very rewarding when we're recognized for it, especially to be featured in Flexo's 40th anniversary issue." 

"We used to image film, send it out, and wait for a matchprint," states Steven Haedrich, company president. "We'd send it to the customer and wait for it to be sent back approved, then output a new set of distorted film for production. Now, he adds, "duplicate proofs can be made digitally within hours," resulting in more efficient manufacturing and lower pricing.

According to Christopher Freddo, New York Label's vice president, the company's addition of a second Kodak Approval System was prompted by the growing demand for four-color flexographic labels in more sophisticated applications than bar codes and price stickers alone. "People used to consider flexo a rubber stamp printing method," he states, "but with the help of advanced technology we're able to print labels up to 200-line screen and you couldn't tell the difference between our labels and those of offset lithography. In fact, says Mr. Freddo, "lower costs and reduced setup time are two reasons many offset printers may find it more profitable to broker out such work, rather than produce it themselves."

For more information or a free brochure describing the array of services provided by New York Label, call (toll-free) 1.800.257.2300.