Business Management - Industry Trends

Attention RFID converters: clear your schedules now, because it looks like you’re going to be a bit busy for the next 10 years. Independent consultant IDTechEx predicts RFID technology will eventually become as ubiquitous as the barcode, and converters have the potential to play a more pivotal role in production. A report by the organization projects as early as 2016 that RFID “will mostly be printed directly onto packaging and products, possibly in the hundreds of billions, and [will use] special electronic inks.” Back here in the present, with the technology still in its early stages, there is no standard route to involvement for

As we head into mid-2006, we embrace the many positive changes in the smart label industry. The ratification of the Class 1 Generation 2 ultra-high frequency (UHF) protocol has provided a long-awaited UHF stateside standard. As the EPCglobal organization is progressing to make this a global standard, there are now only a few countries left that have yet to adopt this standard. In the past year, major progress has been made to overcome the RFID issues, which fluids and metals have caused. This will accelerate the ability to implement RFID into these products and increase the demand for high volumes of smart labels. High yields

Part One: Low Cost Entry — Wrapping Electronics RFID is an important enabling technology that appears in an ever-widening variety of applications. In the past, the emergence of barcodes helped create a large label market that lasted for one or two decades before people figured out how to print the barcodes directly on to packaging and products. So, today only 5-15 percent of barcodes appear as labels. However, there are now so many barcodes required—up to 10 trillion yearly—that even the minor percentage still taking the form of labels constitutes a substantial business. This label business will endure because the labels perform special functions,

In the mid-1990s, flexible two-dimensional radio-frequency identification (RFID) inlays were introduced by Texas Instruments (TI) to label converting companies as the basis for manufacturing smart labels. Today, smart labels are used to track products in the supply chains of the world’s largest retailers and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Wal-Mart, Target, Tesco, and numerous other companies in North America and Europe, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense, are all in the process of changing over their distribution and supply operations to include RFID. Since the introduction of inlays less than a decade ago, RFID usage has changed considerably. In these few years, volume has grown

Download the 2007 packagePRINTING Excellence Awards nomination form. As a unanimous vote among packagePRINTING’s 2006 Excellence Awards judges, Hayward, Calif.-based Rotocolor’s “Marilyn Merlot” wine label is this year’s Best of Show honoree for its superior flexographic printing. “It really shows where flexo can go,” said Roy Webb, national sales manager, Mark Andy. “It has fantastic quality and could sit side-by-side with the lithographic print.” This entry was also a first place winner in the Wine Labels - Flexo (Process) category. “The piece is exceptional and shows how far along flexo has come,” said Bob Waddington, general manager, UVitec Printing Ink. “The skin tones are

FID has exploded through the critical mass point, with more and more companies getting involved. A few companies, though, have been producing RFID products for several years now. In the following Q&A, several of these companies describe their involvement over the years and some of their experiences. pP: What is your company’s background? Nancy Mitchell, national product manager, RFID, RR Donnelley—RR Donnelley is a full-service global print provider and the largest printing company in North America, serving customers in publishing, healthcare, advertising, retail, telecommunications, technology, financial services, and many other industries. Founded more than 140 years ago, the company provides solutions in commercial printing, forms and

NAPERVILLE, Ill.--The Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute, Inc., (TLMI) Naperville, IL, has commissioned AWA Alexander Watson Associates to research and publish the 2007 edition of the North American Label Study (NALS). This in-depth TLMI study, updated by the association every three years, aims to inform label converters and suppliers about the drivers shaping the pressure-sensitive label market. It also provides benchmark-level researched market data and trend information to assist companies in making business decisions critical to their growth and profitability -- a strong benefit for TLMI member companies and others involved or considering participation in the North American label market. “Publication of the North American

It’s not too late to take part in this year’s awards competition! This competition recognizes the highest level of printing quality and technical achievement within all package printing industries, and The Best of Show winner will appear on the front cover of packagePRINTING’s August 2006 issue! It’s a perfect opportunity for you to showcase your company’s printing accomplishments. Any label, flexible package, folding carton, corrugated carton, or speciality package printed between January 2005 and April 2006. The deadline has been extended to May 19, 2006. An entry form can be downloaded from our Web site at www.packageprinting.com by clicking on the competition’s icon

When it comes to flexo plates, there’s just one evolving story to tell. It concerns the growth in computer-to-plate (CTP) technology, including its slow-growing acceptance among flexo trade shops, many of which remain skeptical that digital imaging technology has all that much to offer them—yet. Historically, the biggest disadvantage of flexo plates, especially when compared with the litho variety, has been quality, and this perceived disadvantage is largely responsible for the rapid development in CTP flexo. In fact, these developments have resulted in a quality advantage for image reproduction with digital dots vs. film-plate dots. There are dissenters, however. The future may

Bar codes revolutionized automatic identification and data collection more than 30 years ago. However, with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) attracting all the attention and developmental mind power, are bar codes soon to be obsolete? That’s not likely. In fact, bar codes and human-readable information are still required on smart labels to validate the products inside cases and pallets, and they are expected to remain an important part of RFID labels for many years. This is no more a relief than for suppliers of thermal transfer printers and materials. Thermal transfer printing has come a long way since its inception and relies on heat to