Shelf Space: Changing Demand Drives Digital Intrusion

In our cover story this month we meet Fred Arnold of McBattas Packaging and Printing in Fairbury, Nebraska. As he describes it, Fairbury (pop. 3,942) isn’t near anything. A couple hours southwest of Omaha and a long ride on two-lane roads from Interstate 80, it is not a place where you’d expect to find state-of-the-art digital printing. Yet Arnold’s company produces a wide range of folding cartons using a pair of Xerox iGen presses, occasionally augmented by an offset press.

Like other converters who have adopted digital presses, Arnold is finding an increasing number of customers asking for shorter print runs, either for prototyping or for jobs with multiple SKUs. Some jobs, such as prototypes or samples, are simply impractical (and uneconomical) to run on a conventional press, but more notable are the jobs that were once runs of a couple hundred thousand or more a year but are now a few thousand every month, reducing shipping, waste and inventory costs. Digital presses are intruding into labels and folding cartons, shifting work from flexo and offset presses, while letting converters offer customers new capabilities. This has all happened before.

Over the past 15 or so years, commercial printers had the same experience, seeing digital presses handle jobs that could not be produced efficiently or profitably on offset machines. Greeted with enthusiasm by early adopters, and with skepticism and ridicule by head-in-the-sand naysayers, digital printing made inroads and has come to account for a growing share of the commercial print market. The same is happening in package printing and converting. Digital printing is not going to become the dominant means of printing any form of packaging, but it is a capability brand owners will expect converters to offer. At least half the readers of this magazine already offer some level of digital printing, as do many members of trade associations such as TLMI. Digital is every bit as important as conventional printing and offers the ability to secure a larger share of a brand owner’s wallet.

The shorter-run abilities that make digital printing attractive also extend to finishing. In this month’s story on finishing for folding cartons, we hear how a company received an annual order for 50 million folding cartons. But within that order were 2,000 SKUs and the need for the job to be printed and shipped over a 12-month period. Finishing posed the biggest challenge and the answer was a system designed from the get-go for handling short runs.

Finally this month, we’re launching the 2015 packagePRINTING Packaging Excellence Awards. Last year’s competition showed off plenty of innovation, creativity and craftsmanship from around the world and we’re excited about seeing this year’s entries. Several industry experts will be picking the best labels, folding cartons, flexible packaging, and corrugated containers, and we’ll showcase the winners in our August issue. You can get started with our online entry form at www.packageprinting.com/awards/excellenceform.pdf.

We’re looking forward to seeing the work that really makes you proud, so bring it on!

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