Betting on Digital…and Winning

"With digital webs, consumer product companies can expand their thinking beyond conventional design limitations and standard go-to-market strategies," said Jay Dollries, ILS CEO and president. "There's a lot of opportunity in the market now that was just not there five years ago, because of the advancement of HP Indigo digital press technology." Dollries made several points to support this observation.

• The HP Indigo WS6000 has made short-run printing more efficient and economical, attracting brands that want to deploy programs with many versions or SKUs.
• Any job less than 20,000 linear feet goes to the digital room, freeing ILS's narrow-web flexo presses to concentrate on the long runs they excel at.
• Many digital print runs at ILS are not short. Jobs from 70,000 to more than 100,000 linear feet are common, especially ones that gang many SKUs—even 50—into one job.

On the last point, ILS has even run digital print jobs of more than 450,000 linear feet. While ILS itself is thus an advanced user of digital presses, one point ILS made is that the market around it has also advanced.