Loftware and Epson announce partnership for labelling

Epson and Loftware will collaborate to develop cloud-based 1-step colour printing solutions to improve print efficiency and ease of use. The companies will lower barriers to on-demand colour label printing through integration with SAP and other leading business systems.

The partnership will integrate the Epson ColorWorks series of colour label printers with Loftware’s NiceLabel Cloud platforms. Businesses will be able to print from NiceLabel Cloud directly to Epson ColorWorks cloud-connected printers. This will improve productivity, reduce customers’ reliance on IT, minimise print errors, and decrease the cost and inventory of pre-printed labels.

The partnership between Epson and Loftware comes following an increase in demand for high-productivity colour labelling solutions as businesses invested in supply chain improvements, both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Demand has particularly grown among companies that employ SAP EH&S ERP systems and who plan to migrate to S/4 HANA and the cloud. These businesses manage production, warehouse, and distribution facilities and operate across multiple industry segments including chemicals, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, electronics, automotive, aerospace, and retail.

Paul Vogt, VP of Channel and Alliance Strategies at Loftware 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 1-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.”

The collaboration will mean businesses can gain the ability to print labels efficiently and quickly without missing production and shipping deadlines. They’ll reduce waste by eliminating leftover and unused label stocks when a label’s format changes. Organisations will no longer be required to manage the inventory of urgent procurement or customer label stocks and won’t need to purchase higher-cost pre-printed customer short-run labels, but can instead use low-cost standard blank label stocks.

Furthermore, companies in the chemical (GHS), medical device, and pharmaceutical segments are faced with the urgent need to comply with international labelling regulations requiring colour. Through the integration of Epson colour label printers with Loftware’s NiceLabel Cloud platforms, companies that use 2-step printing to print colour labels can now move to lower cost and error-reduced 1-step on-demand colour label printing.

Junkichi Yoshida, Executive Officer and COO of the Printing Solutions Division at Epson added, “readiness to adapt to cloud trends is critical. Our goal is to drive the growth of color on-demand printing in various kinds of businesses and applications by further enhancing the quality of our label print technology and optimizing 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.”