Seiko Epson Corporation and Loftware have partnered to combine their respective colour label printers and enterprise labelling experience to “revolutionise” customers’ labelling workflows.

The partnership will integrate the Epson ColorWorks series of label printers with Loftware’s NiceLabel Cloud platforms. Businesses can print from NiceLabel Cloud directly to Epson ColorWorks Cloud-connected printers, which is expected to reduce their reliance on IT, reduce print errors, and reduce the cost and inventory of pre-printed labels.

The collaboration is a response to the growing demand for the use of colour on products, cartons and pallet labels for identification. In addition, companies in the chemical (GHS), medical device, and pharmaceutical segments must comply with international labelling regulations requiring colour.

Companies that use two-step printing can now move to lower cost and error-reduced one-step, on-demand colour label printing enabled by the partnership.

Customers can print labels efficiently without missing production and shipping deadlines and are no longer required to purchase higher-cost, pre-printed, custom, short-run labels but can use low-cost, standard, blank label stocks.

Businesses also no longer need to manage the inventory and urgent procurement of custom label stocks; therefore can reduce waste by eliminating leftovers and unused label stocks when the label format changes.

Epson executive officer and COO of the printing solutions division Junkichi Yoshida said, “Readiness to adapt to Cloud trends is critical. Our goal is to drive the growth of colour on-demand printing in various kinds of businesses and applications by further enhancing the quality of our label print technology and optimising both hardware and solutions. 

“This partnership with Loftware is essential for our future business development since by providing Cloud print, our Colorworks printers can connect to the systems of enterprise customers across multiple industries.”

Loftware vice-president of channel and alliance strategies Paul Vogt said, “We’re partnering with Epson to help businesses of all sizes move their labelling into the Cloud. Businesses are adopting best-of-breed partner labelling solutions and one-step colour label printing to bring radical improvements to their supply chain printing operations. We’re delighted to collaborate with Epson to deliver such transformation.”