Printing Peers, Tear Down This Wall!

Perhaps the biggest takeaway I had from EskoWorld 2024 was the importance of breaking down silos extended even beyond the human relationships that power successful business projects. Let me back up and elaborate.

The 2024 edition of the event returned with its usual cornucopia of educational sessions. More than 150 sessions tailored to help packaging and brand experts overcome current challenges and capture future opportunities happened over the three-day event. This is in addition to the event keynotes and showcases.

Although the event was held at Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, Texas, which most definitely is not the Reichstag in Berlin, there was a clear call for change and openness during the opening keynote.

Esko marketing director Jan de Roeck served as master of ceremonies at a lighthearted session titled “Good Morning, EskoWorld!” Beyond the playful veneer abound with humor, personality, and more, a broader message began to develop.

While opportunities and challenges in areas such as sustainability, environmental impact, and operational efficiencies are and will remain ever present, the printing industry is at a momentous time in its development with the strong potential to accelerate innovation to solve end-to-end problems.

Nowhere was this more evident than during the session, AI in Packaging: Virtual CSR. I originally came to this session led by Dries Vandenbussche, Esko’s director of ideation — software, and Rian Goossens, whose official title at Esko is senior software engineer but more aptly should be called execution genius, expecting to see Esko demonstrate how generative AI was being used for more of the typical customer service inquiries. After all, the title does state Virtual CSR.

What I experienced was so much more. Goossens has programmed a generative AI that brings together data from a printing company’s press operations, pack-out, estimating and quoting, and more. This enables what could be days’ worth of work to happen within minutes.

Vandenbussche led the demonstration, which started with a typical brand-printer interaction of a customer bringing in a physical sample for a manufacturer to reproduce. In this case, the sample was a flexible pouch and data from the packaging converter Amcor. An X-Rite spectrophotometer was then used to capture three data points from the sample package.

The software also made observations beyond the numbers supplied by the spectrophotometer. In this case, those observations were made of a PDF of the package design.

Vandenbussche explained, “We can also read the file [a PDF with the package design] with vision with AI. Because we read the file with vision with AI, we can see what the content is. So as an example, we know that the nutrition facts state that there are nuts being used.”

Because the software noted nuts in the nutrition facts panel, it made the conclusion that the package should have extra barrier properties, especially an effective oxygen barrier, to extend the lifespan of the edible product.

Using its logic and the datapoints captured from the spectrophotometer, the software then identified multiple substrate, ink, and coating components to create the package. It also pulled information from other Esko products, such as Phoenix — a planning and imposition software, and Cape — a palletization software, to deliver three quotes within minutes. One quote is optimized for cost; the other quote is optimized for sustainability; and the third quote is the recommended manufacturing plan that balances cost and sustainability concerns.

Furthermore, the AI used its integration into Esko’s workload balancing software for printing operations to identify the best presses onsite to run the job. The AI even included details such as the exact number of minutes on press to run the job.

The magic here is how AI serves as the connector between all these technologies. Software for workflow optimization, quoting, and OCR has existed for years, but the connector between these technologies usually is a human who needs to make decisions based on the data and options provided to move the process forward.

In this demonstration, AI showed that it could connect disparate processes, take data, make observations, and determine the next best course of action within minutes and with minimal human intervention to move the process forward. This brings generative AI’s potential in printing operations from carpet to cement.

By opening these gates with software, printing operations can realize significant leaps in the evergreen pursuits of sustainability, environmental impact, and operational efficiencies. But that will require a willingness of the printing community to welcome change and openness and not see generative AI as the enemy of security and stability. We will need to come to the gate. We will need to open the gate. We will need to tear down the wall.

EskoWorld 2024 took place June 25 to 27 at the Gaylord Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. Next year’s event will take place June 3 to 5 at the Union Station Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri.