A few months ago I got a call from Bob, the owner of a small label printing company who asked if I could refer him to some manufacturers of small digital label presses. That telephone call represented a triumph of technological progress. Bob is a died-in-the-wool flexo printer with customers looking for labels that flexo just can’t handle. He had a tiny tabletop inkjet printer for a few years, but he needed to step up to something with higher speed, durability and a few more functions. Not huge, but enough to add diversity to his mix.

That phone call encapsulates the views of a great many label converters, primarily those who are small and who understand that the nature of packaging will always change. There are those, of course, who would prefer that nothing changed, that they could profitably print the same stickers year after year for the same customers, but they are the ones who are disappearing. Those like my converter friend know that as their customer bases evolve, they must do so as well. They also know that digital printing is accessible to them now, as are the profits therefrom.

Two years ago in this space I quoted Patrick Henry of WhatTheyThink from his review of drupa 2012, in which he wrote that there is “universal agreement that no printing business can have a long-term future without acquiring digital capability of some kind.” Commercial printers long ago learned this, although for many of them the decision was based on Hobson’s choice: adopt or die. Label printers have been slower to adopt, a fact that continues to be discussed with interest among industry observers.

In a research report published this year at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Trevor Schroeder addressed the hesitation among label printers faced with the decision to adopt digital: “A recurring question emerges that potential adopters seem to ask: ‘Digital may be great, but can we make money doing it?’ Furthermore, analog label printers are concerned about having sufficient work to support the adoption of new equipment. Those at the ‘back’ of the business, the owners and executives, tend to hold a more reserved view on the topic. After all, they control the budgets and are responsible for ensuring the business growth strategies are met.”

In a detailed survey of 31 small to medium-sized label manufacturing companies, Schroeder found that half had no intention of acquiring digital printing capability over the next 12 months; 21.4 percent were neutral on the topic, and 28.6 percent were “intended adopters.”
That number of intended adopters fits right in with the projections of others who study the industry. According to IT Strategies, a global research company that studies digital print and related markets, the compound annual growth rate of label substrates printed on digital equipment will have risen 29.4 percent between 2011 and 2016.

Labelexpo is the perfect place to examine the role of digital printing in the label industry. For several years the digital systems providers have commanded their own exhibition hall, displaying everything from presses to finishing equipment to software. Label converters might be slow on the uptake, but they sure do a good job packing themselves into that hall.

“We see a decline in resistance to the process,” says Bob Leahey, associate director of the Color Digital Label & Packaging Team at InfoTrends. “Today there is organic growth in the market for digital, and a certain level of familiarity. It’s also true that there is enough capacity in digital to have access to it whether a printer owns it or not.” Today, he notes, converters with digital presses have a competitive advantage.

Everyone knows that toner-based electrophotography (EP) is the print process of choice among digital label printers. Hewlett-Packard is way out in front of the crowd with its dominant Indigo technology, which is now two decades old and no longer an experimental technology. The other big player is Xeikon, with its dry toner print engine.

The rest of the digital equipment suppliers offer inkjet print systems, and there will be between 30 and 40 of them once again at Labelexpo Americas. IT Strategies sees five-year growth through 2016 of 22 percent for EP, and a whopping 57 percent for inkjet. No doubt the inkjet folks take such a forecast to heart. So far in its short career in the label industry, inkjet has moved forward slowly and only now is emerging from its infancy.

“Inkjet has improved in terms of reliability,” says Leahey. “Remember that inkjet presses really started around 2007 with Jetrion. That career is still very short versus EP. HP and Xeikon have 20 years in the market, but it’s not ancient history for inkjet.”
Adoption, Leahey adds, has been piecemeal for inkjet, “but collectively it’s happening.”

Converters hoping to gain more insight into digital inkjet printing no doubt will spend time examining Mark Andy’s new Digital Series. The USA based narrow web press manufacturer has once again taken a step – its third – into digital waters. This time the company has produced a modular printing and converting press with seven inkjet colors at its heart: C, M, Y, K, O, V, and opaque white. It promises a speed of 256 feet per minute (76 mpm) and integrates inline flexo printing for metallics and cold foil, plus diecutting, inspection and other functions.

“Mark Andy has made a commitment to inkjet with this hybrid,” observes Leahey. The manufacturer says it has constructed every aspect of the Digital Series presses except for the inkjet heads, whose origin has not been made public.

The day will come when just about every label converter will have some kind of digital press in the production room. (After all, nobody has analog prepress any more, do they?) It’s powerful technology and it is still growing. Indigo founder Benny Landa, who is no longer associated with that brand, is working today on presses that print using “nanography.” All I know about Landa’s process is that it uses nano-sized pigments to produce extremely thin ink layers that offer high uniformity, a broader color gamut, and very high printing speed on just about any kind of label stock. Stay tuned.

Flexography – bless its ancient heart – isn’t going anywhere. Certainly more digital-only label shops will take root, but flexo is still the alpha print process. All of the major press manufacturers will attest to that truth. Digital was once perceived as a threat to flexography, and perhaps it still is among those with less flexibility of thought; digital has displaced flexo to some degree from its near monopoly on the shop floor, but it will not destroy it. Some converters, many of them fairly large, service long-run customers all day long without the pressure of short runs and without the need for EP or inkjet. And when the need for a short run surfaces, they have no difficulty jobbing it out to a friendly competitor with digital equipment.

In Chicago this month the new HP Indigo 20000 digital press might be visible from time to time when the crowds part. Xeikon’s wider digital press will also draw the throngs. But take a look also at the gatherings around the booths of Allen Datagraph and Primera, both of which produce small and highly adept digital printing and converting systems. It’s likely that you’ll see my friend Bob in the crowd.



The author is president of Jack Kenny Media, a communications firm specializing in the packaging industry, and is the former editor of L&NW magazine. He can be reached at [email protected].