InfoTrends’ Survey: Package Printers’ Perspectives On Digital Printing

By Bob Leahey

Inks for Digital Printing

By Ken Kisner, INX Digital

Digital printing is a hot commodity and some of the advancements that are addressing the needs of converters are in fact the focus of ink manufacturers. There are four areas where the impact of digital printing is making a huge difference: corrugated, folding carton, plastic, and label markets.

Corrugated is being driven by a massive leap with point-of-purchase (POP) into the traditional market. Highly automated and very fast machines that use two ink technologies are leading this effort. The two dominant ink technologies are UV curable and a water-based ink, which includes a polymer that is giving it extreme durability. The speed and quality of several leading printer manufacturers’ presses are impressive and meet all of the needs to print POP displays.

There is no doubt that inkjet is advancing with secondary packaging for folding carton work. Inkjet at 600 and 1,200 dpi is meeting all demands as the industry goes beyond prototyping by moving into the test marketing and micro-marketing of personal products. Some beverage companies also are exploring this area.

A personal care product company recently introduced a new item to a test audience of 10,000 adults before taking it to mass production. They took this approach because the fight for shelf space at chain supermarkets, drugstores, and big-box retailers is very competitive and expensive. Digital imaging gives them the ability to customize and reach a very specific demographic.

When you talk about packaging film, there is still a barrier to getting an inkjet or UV curable ink on flexible packaging like a Doritos chips bag. There are some formulation issues that need to be addressed involving migration. The ink industry is making strides towards developing safer products for the packaging industry, and there needs to be custom formulations for individual needs to meet specific regulatory requirements for food packaging.

The use of water-based technology in plastics is growing and more developments will occur in 2013, but will be more pronounced with labels. The industry has accepted digital printing and there are stronger opportunities for labels with water-based and UV curable inks. Inkjet is firmly established and remains strong, and print shops that are using it are now better off. Digital has allowed them to reduce inventory since there is no need for long runs.

Ken Kisner is a 25-year industry professional and president of INX Digital International Co., a global manufacturer of inkjet inks and a supplier of printing parts and related services.

InfoTrends recently surveyed converters of labels, folding cartons, and flexible packaging in North America, ultimately to ask a few overarching questions: What do converters want when it comes to print technology? What are their pain points? How can digital printing presses help? Our survey, of course, asked many other questions, but those are the key ones. This month we offer some of the answers from the report's Web survey of 228 total converters (104 label converter, 67 folding carton converters, and 57 flexible packaging converters), and our personal interviews with 35 of them. First, two summary points:

There is high interest among all converters and
even brand owners in color digital printing,
especially for its ability to print short runs.
Color digital print technology meets some of
converters' most important needs, in particular
as a cost-effective alternate to conventional
presses for many print jobs.

To this second point, we add another general finding: in spite of the success in the market of companies such as EFI Jetrion, HP Indigo, Xeikon, and others, many converters are still not aware of how practical and profitable color digital printing can be.

What do customers want?

Regarding the specific sentiments of converters today, ones we interviewed personally say their customers want short runs of print for two main reasons: (1) to be lean in their own manufacturing; and (2) to be able to target markets precisely with particular versions. These two items are megatrends for brand owners and, in turn, for converters. Besides underlying priorities, the research uncovered and measured converters' main pain points. Figure 1 charts the total responses of each group of converters in the survey when asked to rank up to five out of 12 possible sources of frustration or concern about their conventional press technology. (By total responses, we mean the total votes for each response option, whatever the ranking by each respondent.) We focus first on the results to this "pain-points" question because conventional presses are so dominant for all types of label and package converting, and are thus the print technology that color digital presses must compete against.

As seen in the chart, high numbers of short runs are a top concern for all converters, whatever their specialty. Again, the chart is based on total responses, whether ranked 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. When looked at by the number of times each response option was chosen as "1," the rankings of individual response options is about the same—except that short runs climbs to the second highest position. Why are short runs such a big pain point? A key reason is that they spur other top concerns. Job changeover time, which ranks first overall based on total responses, is a bigger issue for short runs than long ones, and the same is true for media waste. Meanwhile, as noted earlier, short runs are what brand owners increasingly want so they can be both lean and target markets. For these and other reasons, short runs rank highly as a pain point and contribute to converters' top concerns about their conventional press technology and total cost of operation.

The research also gives insight into converters' biggest concerns about color digital presses, which we specified in the survey as meaning production level systems, both electrophotographic (EP; e.g., HP Indigo, Xeikon, Xerox) and inkjet (e.g., Durst, EFI Jetrion, Epson, others). The response options for the question about digital press concerns are the same as the response options in the question about conventional presses, with one exception: instead of plate costs, which are not relevant to digital presses, the question asks about concern regarding click-based supplies billing, a feature of most electrophotographic press installations.

Based on the survey's smaller sample of digital press users (in the case of flexible packaging converters, just 14 respondents), the results shown in Figure 2, again for total responses, show the top concerns to be total cost operation, press reliability, and spot colors. "High numbers of short runs" and "Job changeover time," two leading causes of concern for conventional presses, were also response options for this question, but these concerns rank much lower for digital presses than for conventional ones. That result reflects digital presses' abilities to print short runs easily and to changing jobs quickly. In practice, we learned from interviews that high numbers of short runs can in fact be tedious even for digital presses, and that good workflow tools are valued about equally by users of digital and conventional presses as a result.

Technology mix

The structured survey yielded detailed information about how each responding company is equipped for prepress and for production, regardless of run lengths. Regarding these initial questions:

In prepress, surveyed companies own related software to a large degree, including, among others: color management (80 percent), artwork/file preparation (79 percent), and workflow management (54 percent). Meanwhile, 65 percent of surveyed companies own computer-to-plate systems.
Surveyed companies use mainly analog presses, and a mix of prepress technologies. Of 228 total respondents, 96 (42 percent) have just analog presses, while 117 (51 percent) have analog plus some type of digital (e.g., digital press, wide format printer, tabletop printer). Digital-only converters are rare, just 7 percent.
Printing equipment varies, but each category of converter has one type of analog press that dominates: flexo is the top choice for label converters (82 percent) and flexible packaging converters (76 percent); for folding carton converters, sheetfed offset is the top technology (92 percent).
As to digital printing, again there is a mix, but not as well differentiated by converter type. Overall, high-end color EP presses lead at 64 percent of all companies that have digital printing. This is followed by wide format printers of some type (35 percent), and single-pass inkjet press (30 percent).

A general comment about print technology is that, while analog presses dominate, most converters have some type of digital printing equipment (Figure 3). That equipment is often not a color digital press, but rather a wide format inkjet printer or even a tabletop label printer of some type. For vendors of color digital presses, the takeaway is that a high share of converters—even flexible packaging and folding carton converters—are familiar with one or more digital printing methods.

Most wanted

Figure 4 is based on questions to converters regarding what they would buy, from a long list of options, if they did not have to worry about budget. The most interesting finding is that for each type of converter, the top desire is to buy a full-color digital press that is dedicated to his or her company's primary application. That choice outranks the option for a new conventional press for each type of converter. That result is somewhat surprising for folding carton and flexible packaging converters, where color digital presses are much less known than they are among label converters. Still, as the research shows, printing short runs on conventional presses is a problem for all converters, and digital presses are a good remedy.

Similar to the these results concerning presses, "finishing line for a color digital press" outranks the corresponding option for a conventional finishing line. True variable data printing, a digital specialty, ranks second. These patterns generally hold true even for converters who are just using conventional presses today. InfoTrends believes that the responses collectively reflect the recognition of digital presses' ability to print short runs efficiently, and even to print variably for security, personalization, or other purposes.

A final note on this chart is that workflow software is ranked fifth overall, a fairly strong finish. This most likely reflects its value in managing, among other things, the efficient printing of short runs.

Converters want other things, as seen in the full report that this article is based on. Below are what we believe are most important:

Greater confidence in the business that a new color digital press will support. All converters want this, but it is a key need for non-users today.
Expansion into other applications, to enhance press use and profitability. Some label converters want to print flexible packaging, and some folding carton converters want to print carded graphics, etc.
Bigger digital presses. Folding carton and flexible packaging converters like the bigger format presses expected in 2014. Vendors beware, though: converters are apprehensive about press costs and, as always, profitability. pP

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InfoTrends’ Survey on Digital and Conventional Printing