EFI Puts an Emphasis on Packaging in 2016

Chewbacca made a special appearance at EFI Connect during EFI CEO Guy Gecht's Star Wars themed keynote.

For the 10^th year in a row EFI hosted its annual Connect conference at the Wynn in Las Vegas, bringing its customers together to network and learn about EFI’s offerings and what the company has in store for the future.

While EFI has made big splashes recently in textile printing and wide format, speakers throughout the conference indicated that packaging is a major growth market for the industry’s future and an area where the company plans to place a focus.

Following his annual keynote address at the conference, EFI CEO Guy Gecht participated in a question and answer session with the media members in attendance. Over the next three to five years, Gecht says, EFI will place a heavy focus on both textile and packaging. He also mentioned that EFI’s plans for this year’s drupa include more packaging than in the past.

One of the major announcements at EFI Connect was the release of the new Corrugated Packaging Suite. This new offering will provide a variety of features including corrugated scheduling and trimming, plant converting scheduling and planning, data collection and DMI, roll stock inventory management and more.

“Packaging is a growing market,” Gaby Matsliach, EFI’s senior vice president and general manager of productivity software, said. “In packaging, digital becomes a growing factor. Our responsibility is better support for our packaging offerings.”

In addition to the new corrugated suite, Matsliach said EFI’s packaging productivity suite has undergone a major investment to help it become a more complete suite. He says it now features integration with Esko automation and advanced layout optimization for labels and folding cartons.

Label samples printed on EFI Jetrion digital presses on display at EFI Connect

In terms of inkjet printing, Ken Hanulec, EFI’s vice president of marketing, inkjet solutions, said that EFI’s inkjet solutions in packaging will experience growth in the near future. He explained that LED is a big part of the EFI inkjet portfolio, which includes Jetrion label presses. Hanulec also stated that Jetrion has approached nearly 300 installations.

The short term focus for EFI’s line of Jetrion presses includes polypropylene friendly or PP lasers for thin films, Radius integration and Esko Plug-in VDP. Hanulec also mentioned that he sees opportunity for high-speed digital inkjet in the corrugated market.