Standup Pouches and Digital Presses Bring Change to Folding Cartons

"You don't have to do all that expensive [offset] printing," says Mace. "You don't have to buy cutting dies, either. So it's pretty cost effective. That's the beauty of using digital."

For the moment, digital production is a largely a niche folding carton solution provided as a service to some short-run customers. But as the digital press fleet expands, high-speed and large-format options are enabling longer run lengths. Web-fed presses targeted at high-volume folding carton production include Fujifilm's new Graphium, the HP Indigo 20000 and Xeikon 3000 Series. The fleet of sheetfed digital packaging presses includes HP Indigo's 30000, Kodak's Nexpress, Screen's Truepress JetSX, Xerox's iGen4, Canon's soon-to-come InfiniStream, and the yet-to-be-seen Landa S10. For corrugated applications, examples include EFI's VUTEk GS3250 and HP's just-announced Scitex 15000 corrugated press.