Go, Speed Racer

Mark Rasmussen, product manager, packaging, Heidelberg USA, Inc., adds more to the speed/substrate argument. “Traditionally, it’s always been simple paper or paperboard. [Now] you start getting into plastics, thinner plastics, in-mold label materials, and lightweight holographic foil stamp—elements that didn’t exist five or 10 years ago,” he says. “Things that people never thought about doing in the process of sheetfed printing or diecutting [were done] on some other kind of process, maybe a web process. Now with some of the new technologies, we’re able to show customers that not only can you run these types of products, but you can run them at speeds you never expected to.”