The-Amazing Shrinking Laminator

As the cost of laminators drops, so does their size, the need for training—almost everything. Except quality, say these manufacturers.

by Mike Llewellyn

"Price is just about everything at an airline," reveals Bill Zieske, director of Printing Services for Alaska Airlines. So when his Seattle-based in-plant picked up a GBC 5270 laminator in 1998, a good price was the number-one priority.

Zieske says his shop uses the laminator to handle a variety of tasks, from placards that end up inside the aircraft to much smaller identification tags for airline employees.

Zieske's experiences parallel one general trend in laminating equipment, according to industry experts, and that is shrinkage—both in size and in price.

"There is a need for easy-to use, low-cost lamination," affirms Lisa Durell, marketing manager for Seal Graphics. "Not too long ago, there were mostly $30,000 laminators."

She says as the market drives down the cost of ink-jet printing, laminating companies are forced to keep pace.

"What's happening is that people that invest in ink-jet printers have a certain idea of what cost should be. They don't want to pay $10,000 for a printer and then $20,000 for a laminator. Printer prices have brought laminator prices down," she says.

Keep It Simple

Durell adds that another reason for the shrinking price of laminators is that in-plant managers are not interested in a complicated machine.

"So we've simplified our machines, and that has brought our costs down," she says.

That sounds just about right to Bill Zieske. He says his shop was looking for something that was "just the standard—laminating and cutting."

Gene Gajos is a product manager at D&K Group, another manufacturer of laminators. Like Durell, he says his company is seeing a downward trend in laminator size and cost.

"Low-cost quality," says Gajos, is what in-plant managers want. Still, he says the laminating market is difficult to get a handle on.

"The market is just so weird," he says. "Before Graph Expo, we were seeing declining sales; after that we saw an explosion in sales. We were at a show in Florida early in the year which was slow." But now, Gajos adds, sales have picked up substantially.

Low-cost laminators may be the reason. Gajos says that at Graph Expo, in-plant managers that came to the D&K booth wanted to know one thing: "How can this machine make us money?"

A quick return-on-investment (ROI) is one surefire way to do that.

Jason Long at Southwest Plastic Binding adds that mounting, which goes hand-in-hand with lamination, is also increasingly less expensive.

"People have always mounted items, but in the past it's been very expensive. Machines cost in excess of $20,000," he says. "Three or four years ago, you could suddenly bring that in-house. And the markup is incredible. The margin has been very nice. We show our customers a little ROI, saying 'This is how many pieces you have to mount to cover your initial investment.' "

While the market has been acting strangely, many laminating companies report several other simultaneous challenges.

Digital printing is the big one.

"You can't use the same film for digital and offset," says Alan Parkhill, vice president for sales and marketing at Banner American. Parkhill explains that digital lays a thick coating of toner over a sheet of paper, and that the fuser oil that holds the toner in place provides for an extra layer of separation.

"So you've got this toner coverage that offset laminates won't adhere to," he says.

Parkhill feels the biggest trend in lamination is the ability to laminate these challenging digital prints.

"We've had more success selling single-sided laminators for book covers than wide-format laminators for ink-jets," he says.

When shopping, he advises, know what you need.

"You have to clarify which printer you're looking to support," he says. "Whether it's wide-format or not, if you're going to need hot or cold film."

Joe Bondonna is the resident laminating expert at Spiral Binding. Bondonna agrees that keeping up with digital technology is the big challenge that laminator and film manufacturers are facing.

"The big issue is that you can get de-lamination, and clouding, which is a result of out-gassing," he says. Bondonna explains that not only can an improper laminate peel away from the substrate, but too much heat applied for too long will change the properties of the film.

As a result, he says pouch laminators are his company's hot-ticket right now. Heated rollers, he says, are ideal for short-run color copy work.

Tempests In A Teapot

Lisa Durell, of Seal Graphics, has her eye on what she says are trends in more niche markets, but are notable nonetheless. One of these trends is liquid coating.

"For the high-volume market, we're seeing tremendous success with liquid coating," she says. Durell explains that back when Seal Graphics was known as the Hunt Corp., the company developed a liquid laminate for outdoor applications.

"We're looking to balance this against film laminate," she says.

Going It Alone

But regardless of industry trends, the right laminator is as specific as the in-plant purchasing it. And sometimes cost is not the deciding factor. That's what A. Roy Stecher at Howard County's Maryland in-plant says his shop learned when it set out to select one.

Because the in-plant predominantly laminates licenses, Stecher says the shop was on the lookout for a laminator ideally suited to that function.

"We were looking at size, the different types of materials it uses, and the laminating process," he says. "Price played a moderate role."

Who knew?

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