NordPrint BV, based near Rotterdam, had a clear mandate from its e-commerce clients: short-turn label runs with tight color tolerances and reliable adhesion across paper and film. They were dealing with mixed SKUs, multilingual data, and frequent design updates. Based on insights from onlinelabels projects supporting multiple brands, the team knew variable-data workflows were the right direction—what they needed was process control that wouldn’t collapse under daily changeovers.
Here’s where it gets interesting. The team had historically relied on flexo for volume and consistency, then slotted in Digital Printing for personalization. That split model worked until address formats, return requirements, and language variations pushed complexity past the comfort zone. Labels for returns behaved one way on labelstock over paperboard; serial-number labels for equipment asked for a different durability profile.
The turning point came when sales commitments outpaced their changeover rhythm. They needed a setup that kept ΔE stable across substrates, supported variable data, and didn’t balloon waste during resets. They also wanted a workflow they could trust at 6 a.m. on a Monday—every week.
Company Overview and History
NordPrint BV started in 1998 as a regional label converter serving Retail and Industrial clients. Over the years, they built a hybrid capability: two flexographic lines for steady volume and a Digital Printing unit for personalized work. Today, they handle 300k–500k labels per month, with a growing share of e-commerce jobs. Routine runs include address return labels and product identifiers, typically on paper labelstock with glassine liners, plus select PP film for moisture resistance.
Their flexo lines use Water-based Ink for paper applications and UV Ink when durability matters, while Digital Printing handles variable data and short-run personalization. Substrate choices span paperboard-friendly labelstock and PE/PP films; finishing includes Varnishing and Die-Cutting. Color management aims at ΔE control on brand spot colors, historically referenced to ISO 12647 with Fogra PSD practices guiding process checks.
They ship across Europe, so postal guidelines and country-specific return requirements shape label sizing and adhesive selection. Nothing exotic here—just practical decisions that keep labels legible, scannable, and easy to remove or retain depending on the shipping partner’s workflow.
Quality and Consistency Issues
The pain points were predictable but painful. ΔE drifted into the 3–5 range when switching between paper labelstock and PP film, and registration on narrow webs could wander by 0.2–0.4 mm during long runs. Waste sat around 10–12%, with FPY hovering near 78–82%. Changeover time landed in the 40–60 minute bracket on busy days. For serialized maintenance jobs, their calibration labels needed higher contrast and abrasion resistance than the e-commerce sets—one workflow wasn’t serving both consistently.
Someone in logistics asked, “can fedex print labels for us at dispatch?” It’s a fair question. But the answer for this plant was no—the team needed control over color, substrates, and adhesives on-site, plus variable data formatted for local carriers. Outsourcing would add delays and chip away at consistency they were trying to restore.
Solution Design and Configuration
They re-centered their approach around Digital Printing with UV-LED Printing on a narrow web, targeting a 1200 dpi configuration to keep microtext crisp and barcodes clean. G7 calibration plus Fogra PSD routines tightened their color pipeline, with ΔE targets set below 2 for brand-critical tones. To accelerate makereadies, they standardized layout frames using an onlinelabels template for A4 sheet prototypes and matched it to their roll rules. As a baseline for press profiles, they reviewed the publicly shared methods from onlinelabels sanford and adapted them to local substrates. It’s not a universal recipe—but it provided a solid starting point to lock down color and geometry.
Finishing stayed practical: inline Die-Cutting for most jobs, Varnishing when scuff risk was high, and Spot UV reserved for occasional premium work. For tough serials, they kept a Thermal Transfer step for certain calibration labels that face solvents or abrasion; Digital Printing handled the field layout, and Thermal Transfer added high-contrast data where durability trumped speed. This split ensured longevity without overcomplicating every job.
We learned a small but critical lesson: matte varnish could nudge perceived saturation on brand colors. The fix wasn’t a hero move—just a compensation curve in the RIP and a check in the print-to-substrate interaction tests. Sometimes the simplest tweaks stabilize the whole line.
Quantitative Results and Metrics
Six months in, FPY now averages 91–93% on mixed substrates. Median ΔE sits between 1.5 and 1.8 for brand tones across paper labelstock and PP. Changeover time moved to a 15–25 minute window on typical SKUs, and waste is trending around 8–9%. Throughput on variable data labels holds steady for daily shifts without the spike-and-drop pattern that used to appear after back-to-back changeovers. It’s steady rather than flashy—and that’s what the team wanted.
On the commercial side, the investment model points to an 18–24 month payback period based on current volumes, which the team considers realistic for a hybrid shop. Postal-format jobs like address return labels are now scheduled alongside product batches without stressing color or registration control. As a next step, they plan to extend template-based layouts and press checks across more SKUs—drawing on what they learned from onlinelabels case reviews to keep workflows grounded in data, not wishful thinking.
