As you tour the current state of digital label printing technology, you may get a strong feeling of déjà vu. For almost a decade now, label converters have found themselves pursued by equipment vendors touting familiar digital promises, year-in and year-out: short-run efficiencies, faster turnaround times and reduction in substrate waste, to name just a few. In many ways, it is reminiscent of the classic film, “Groundhog Day,” where Bill Murray wakes up every morning only to find out that he is reliving the same day over and over again. But don’t confuse repetition for stagnancy; there is considerable progress happening throughout the industry on this very long “day,” and cause for great optimism going forward.

Although Bill Murray’s character keeps waking up on the “same” day, he doesn’t experience duplicate 24-hour periods; rather, he lives each day with the full knowledge of what has taken place during all those repeated “yesterdays.” Likewise, converters, vendors and end users who are immersed in their own “Digital Groundhog Day” can awaken each day and learn from the far-reaching impact that digital is having on the label industry. A quick look at the industry’s digital evolution will highlight how far we have already come, and how close we are to being on the verge of a new day in label production.

“For almost a decade now, converters have found themselves pursued by vendors touting familiar digital promises, year-in and year-out.”

Vendors
Just a few short years ago, you could easily count the number of digital label vendors on one hand; that has changed dramatically. Printing equipment manufacturers are seeking sustainable growth and profits, and the allure of package and label printing is attracting them to this enduring market space. Unlike other print markets that are declining due to online digital replacement, labels and packaging are not easily replaced with a virtual solution.

This has resulted in an explosion of vendors across the globe offering a wide range of products with various value propositions. Nowhere is this more evident than at Labelexpo, where dozens of exhibitors have their latest and greatest technology on display, showcasing products ranging in price from $50K to more than $1.6M.

Where did all these vendors come from? Some of them have parlayed their digital expertise from other printing markets, such as wide format or commercial printing, and applied that expertise to labels and packaging. Others are traditional flexographic press manufacturers who recognize the threat of digital and are leveraging their market muscle by offering their loyal customer base digital products in addition to analog presses. In both cases, they are making big bets on future growth by targeting the intersection of label markets and digital printing technology.

Products
“From printers to presses” is a phrase that best captures the product advancements that have taken place in the industry since its inception. Early development initiatives were focused on the technical details and benefits of digital printing, primarily because this process was foreign to flexo-savvy converters. More recently, digital innovators have determined that although printing is important, it is only one of the many operations that full-service converters perform when producing a label. 

This has led to the creation of hybrid printing presses that embody the convergence of digital and analog, aiming to incorporate the best of both printing processes. In all three cases below, each hybrid press began from a distinct starting point depending on the core competencies of the equipment vendor, and completed its development journey with a unique analog-digital mix.

Standalone digital: More and more, “all-digital solutions” are adding non-digital features in order to address end-customer requirements.  For example, many of the latest generation printing machines have a lamination station, low-cost flexo flood coater or sheeter as part of these “digital presses.” Similarly, semi-rotary or rotary diecutting stations are increasingly an option on digital presses for cost-effective finishing.

Augmenting flexo:  Many well-known flexo press manufacturers rightly perceive the disruptive nature of digital, and are proactively extending the capabilities of their “big iron” by adding an optional digital printing station. There are several of these on the market already, and this trend got a major boost with new product launches announced both at Labelexpo and at vendors’ own events.

Third-party integration: In contrast to the alternatives above where the vendor develops, tests and sells the entire hybrid press, this scenario involves a third-party provider integrating a digital printing solution on top of a converter’s existing flexo press. Although some of the benefits of a single-supplier solution may be sacrificed, this approach potentially breathes new digital life into an existing analog asset.

Technology
The current wave of new digital products would not have been possible if it weren’t for major innovations at the subsystem level. Technological advances in print engines and consumables (i.e., inks/toner), in particular, have enabled presses to achieve tremendous performance improvements. 

Print Engines: Some of today’s high-end digital presses rival flexo in both image quality and net speed, thanks in great part to significant print engine advancements that have been achieved in recent years. Print resolutions of up to 1200 dpi and beyond allow for exceptional print quality, especially for printing fine details, very small bar codes and 2–point type or below. 

From a pure speed perspective, advanced technology research has resulted in faster inkjet and toner engines. When these higher speed print engines are combined with wider press designs, digital productivity increases dramatically and achieves impressive, new benchmarks. This combination of speed and image quality allows digital presses to be used in a broad range of demanding and high volume applications (e.g., pharmaceutical, food and beverage).

Inks/Toner: Long gone are the days when digital presses were confined to printing only CMYK; a wide variety of printed colors are now available, including highly opaque white, expanded gamut, metallics and varnishes. Enhancements to formulations have also led to increased durability, anti-counterfeiting features and food-grade versions of ink/toner. Ultimately, this allows converters to use their digital presses on a larger universe of jobs. 

Converters
All these technological innovations and product choices are not being lost on the converter community. One sure sign of progress is the accelerating pace at which converters are incorporating digital label equipment into their operations.  

Early adopters: Pioneering digital “veterans” who were the early adopters a few years back are now doubling down on their investments.  They are either adding capacity by buying additional presses from their original vendor, or bolstering their digital capabilities by taking advantage of innovations found in competitive products.  Their goal, in either instance, is to maintain their first-mover advantage by expanding their digital footprint.

The “Big Guys”:  Many large multinational label and packaging firms are establishing strategic, multi-year relationships with equipment suppliers to be their global digital suppliers of choice. Others are taking a best-of-breed approach by allowing local plants to “experiment” with competing digital printing solutions to find out what’s best. In both cases, however, the big guys are moving forward with digital and the product vendors are eagerly ready to serve them.

New entrants:  Affordable, upgradeable industrial presses are allowing converters of all sizes, even those with less than $1 million in label sales, to invest in high-quality digital printing capabilities. This marks an important departure from the recent past when converters were limited to two main digital choices:  full-featured, expensive presses that were beyond their financial reach, or modified desktop/wide format printers that had very limited productivity. 

When Will ‘Tomorrow’ Be Here?
Even with all the progress that has been described, it still feels like “déjà vu all over again” (thanks Yogi Berra!), and it is fair to ask:  when will the label industry awaken from its “Digital Groundhog Day” to a new era in digital label production? Here are a few milestones that will indicate that “tomorrow” has arrived.

Replacement, not complement:  As impressive as today’s digital presses are, there are still certain accessories they lack and tasks they can’t perform as well as flexo presses. Subsequent generations of hybrid digital presses will close this gap until the point when digital can truly replace analog printing presses rather than just complement them.

Consumables pricing: Digital ink/toner pricing is sometimes unfairly compared to flexo ink pricing, a comparison that ignores the vastly different manufacturing volumes of the inks.  However, for large-scale digital adoption to take off, digital ink/toner will need to come down further in price so that converters can increase the breakeven point for producing longer job runs.

Rationalization of vendors: The label industry is not large enough for the plethora of equipment suppliers to survive, no matter how innovative they are.  As with any product life cycle, the market for digital label presses will migrate from its current growth stage where suppliers proliferate, to a mature stage where a purging will occur and only the strongest survive.

Although these milestones for “tomorrow” are still several years away, it is inevitable that they will occur as the analog-to-digital transformation in labels moves forward relentlessly. In the meantime, act like Bill Murray and make the most of every day by embracing all the exciting digital technologies, products and opportunities that are available “today.”



About the author: Sean Skelly provides the label and packaging industries with consultation on market dynamics, technology adoption and best practices implementation. Sean can be reached at [email protected].