Labelmaster Expands with Nilpeter Press

Labelmaster specializes in labels for the transport of dangerous goods, substances that when mishandled or with inappropriate guidelines pose a risk to health, safety, property or the environment.
Dangerous goods include explosives, radioactive materials, flammable liquids, dangerous or volatile chemicals, strong acids, compressed gases, poisons, and aerosols. But there are also items such as teeth whiteners, cosmetics, perfume, nail polish and cell phones.

According to U.S. government statistics from 2014, there are 1.4 million DG shipments per day, with 94% of those transported by highway. 

Founded by Harry Fund in 1967, Labelmaster’s first products were labels for transportation companies. When the U.S. Department of Transportation released new regulations regarding transporting hazardous materials, Fund realized a need for labels that offered instructions on care and safe shipping. In response, the company introduced placards for trucks signifying there were hazardous materials onboard.

In 1970, the company introduced Spacemaster 100, a flip placard system,  that allows trucks and tankers to display various signage indicating the vehicle is transporting dangerous goods.

In the mid-1990s Labelmaster developed and introduced MasterForm, a computerized form filler and checker. 

Labelmaster currently counts more than 70 Fortune 100 among its customer base and serves more than 500 industries in total. Last year, the company printed 125 million individual labels and 8.1 million individual placards. 

“Keeping customers informed about changing regulations is the most challenging part of our jobs,” said Mike Kaufman, VP, production and technology with Labelmaster. “We spend every bit as much, if not more, time talking with our customers about compliance issues than we do about our products.”

“The value of compliance is of immeasurable importance,” added Mike Brown, senior marketing manager. “One goal is to help our customers’ businesses grow as we help them meet and exceed what is expected of them in terms of regulations.”

The company recently installed a brand-new FA press from Nilpeter. The press offers a host of features such as clean-hand technology; vertical auto-lock system; driven chill rollers; multi-operator interface; custom-built configuration; new CLEANINKING design; multi-substrate printing; sleeve-based printing; and value-adding units ready.

“Presses with the fastest changeovers and minimal waste are to be expected, our current machine innovations are clean hand technology solutions for a generation [that] has been raised on disruptive technologies,” the company said.

“Our press operators were quick to embrace the new technology,” said Kaufman. “Our average operator has been with the company about 20 years and have been very happy not only with the press speed but with its ease of use and quick set up times. The press runs so much faster than previous presses we had to install an ink pumping station to keep up.”