Standup Pouches and Digital Presses Bring Change to Folding Cartons

It's a sailor's delight: the arrival of a peaceful dawn after a turbulent winter signals warmer and fairer weather ahead for the packaging industry. Indications of a North American economic recovery are popping up everywhere. From a large jump in new orders by U.S. non-manufacturers to a continued increase in long-term housing demand, there is ample reason to be hopeful.

Buoyed by the economy's slow improvement, the printing industry's hopes are also rising. With a recent bump in print industry hiring (up 1,000 workers in April) and news of the highest profits-per-establishment numbers since 2007, print remains stubbornly afloat. Package printing is moving to the forefront as the economy improves, with the Paperboard Packaging Council calling for 2.4 percent annual growth through 2016.

Still, sluggish growth of the U.S. GDP remains a boat anchor for North American packaging printers; with economic expansion stuck at 2 percent, many shops—according to a new report from Research and Markets—have been unable to sustain the nearly five percent annual growth rate predicted for the global folding carton industry. Even so, the relatively stable business climate enjoyed by the U.S. packaging industry over the last 12 months feels like sailing on a calm ocean.

"Consumer confidence is at a high level," says Dr. Chris Kuehl, an economic analyst who recently spoke at the 2014 Foil & Specialty Effects Association meeting in Milwaukee. "With the Fed remaining cautious and inflation under control, there's every reason to believe that growth will continue on the same track as 2013."

Shelf Shout

And it's not just a stronger economy that's filling the sails. David Hutchison, CEO of BrightMarks, a print and packaging enhancement company, feels there is also pent-up demand for "shelf shout" as buyers realize high visibility packaging can be compatible with their environmental goals.

"I see a shift back to value-added processes in packaging," Hutchison says. "The sustainability concerns brought out in the past led to the perception that high visibility enhancements were a negative to sustainability. Our industry brought research to the table that proved otherwise: It was myths that caused the dip."

Hutchison also thinks it unlikely that the popularity of flat-bottom pouches and other new packaging formats will have an adverse impact on the folding carton marketplace. He feels there will be market enough for all formats, due to strong growth in small business manufacturing. Rather than the encroachment of flexible packaging, Hutchison thinks that the folding carton industry will feel a greater impact from the growth of digital package production.

Digital Advantage

"[New folding carton providers] hit that wall," says Hutchison, "The investment in the tooling, and the run lengths, and all the costs of doing a traditional paperboard run. It was a barrier. But with digital they can offer runs of 500 cartons or 1,000 cartons, and start local with boutique retailers."

Digital folding carton production is already a reality for Ross Avedissian, CEO of trade printer ColorFX, who uses a Xerox iGen4 to fill paperboard box orders under 2,500 pieces. Much of that work is the creation of packaging prototypes, which sometimes turn into long-run orders for ColorFX's conventional presses.

"In the past, making a prototype sample in small quantities was our biggest problem, and a very big cost to our clients," says Avedissian. "The digital press gives us the ability to provide cost efficiency for our clients along with the fast turnaround time."

ColorFX is experiencing growth in its sales of digitally printed folding cartons, a boost that Avedissian attributes to the iGen4's production flexibility, fast turnaround time and short run cost-effectiveness.

"We are noticing more and more orders," says Avedissian. "We have hope to see all of our 1 to 2,500-piece orders produced and customized on our digital press."

The same strategy is in place at Nosco's largely digital facility in Bristol, Penn., It boasts the first U.S. installation of a B2-size HP Indigo 30000. Flanked by pre- and post-coaters, a near-line cutter-trimmer, a HP Indigo ws6000, and a conventional flexographic press, the big Indigo targets the folding carton market. HP says about half a dozen installations of this same press will be in place around the U.S by the end of 2014.

"The 30000 allows us to reduce lead times from weeks to days," says Craig Curran, Nosco's VP for sales and marketing. "Printing digitally also allows us to achieve greater color consistency than conventional printing, plus we eliminate printing plates."

This is a harbinger of presses to come. Economic run lengths on some digital folding carton presses that are expected to reach the market in 2015 are in the 14,000 to 20,000 sheet range, with minimal changeover times, capabilities that will inexorably shift a segment of folding cartons to digital production.

Laser Light

Press and post-press equipment manufacturers have noticed this activity, and have begun to chase the digital opportunity. Diecutting powerhouse Brandtjen and Kluge has launched a strategic alliance with LasX, a vendor of high-speed, tooling-free laser diecutting systems.

"There are some large folding carton manufacturers, working on large projects, that are making major investments in digital presses," says Michael Aumann, CEO of Brandtjen and Kluge. "But others that focus only on high-volume folding carton production don't see digital as a fit for their high-volume world. Meanwhile, commercial printers are saying, 'Well, I can do that work.'"

For a commercial shops, making the jump to folding cartons makes no sense without laser diecutting. Aumann sees digital printing coupled with laser diecutting as an enabling force for commercial printers to play in the short-run packaging world. The print and production steps needed for digitally printed folding cartons—top-level color management, tight registration, automated workflows, and UV or aqueous coatings—are all business as usual in commercial shops. Laser diecutting is a new process, but well within the skill range of many commercial printers.

Even without the use of lasers, very short run packaging and point of sales displays are currently being produced on flatbed inkjet devices. Cactus Containers is a casemaking company that outsources some short-run projects to a nearby HP Scitex FB6700, where a cutting table's motorized knife blade trims and scores the output.

"There's point-of-sale, tradeshow materials, startup companies looking to get prototypes made, or small runs of fancy boxes," relates Doug Mace, manager of Cactus Containers. "We do some of that, but not tons of it, because the cost is still very expensive—but it's cheaper than doing a traditional run, where you have to make the cutting dies then go to offset printing.

"With digital print, they're not locked into anything. They don't have to invest all that money into tooling then find out that, 'you know what, I guess we can't put that many into this display, we gotta cut that thing down, make it smaller,' and they are out all that expense of the tooling."

"We like to do offset printing because the quality is better," admits Mace. For short runs, however, he sees digital's advantages.

"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.

"It's where the market's going," says Stephen Riddle, owner of FOCUSales, Inc., a distributor of folding cartons, labels and packaging. "Folding carton, labels, flexible packaging, all of it."

Supporting Evidence

If that sweeping prediction is true, it should be possible to find supporting evidence. Some of that comes from EFI's VUTEk division, a manufacturer of inks for wide-format and narrow web inkjet printers.

"I think digital is growing," says Ken Hanulec, Vice President, Marketing, Inkjet Solutions at EFI. "Our ink business is up double-digit growth, quarter after quarter, for over 15 quarters in a row."

A manufacturer of inkjet presses as well as inks, EFI is working hard to promote the use of digital print engines within the packaging industry. "We see it as a great emerging growth market," Hanulec says. "I'm working with some offset folding carton companies in California as we speak."

Beyond the horizon, digital print methods appear destined to launch an eventual broadside attack on traditional production–but for now, it should be smooth sailing for the mighty ships of litho and flexo. On this bright morning, digital production is merely the newest addition to their fleet, with early adopters adding machines so they can offer an alternative that adds to overall print volume by enabling new applications. pP