Mark Andy’s Open House, held on Thursday, March 3, at the company’s headquarters in St. Louis, MO, USA, featured a keynote presentation from Mark Hanley, president of I.T. Strategies, and a converter testimonial from Ryan Reding, general manager at WS Packaging. Both sessions highlighted the benefits of the Mark Andy Digital Series press and how it can fit into a customer’s workflow.

According to Reding, WS Packaging has served as a beta site and been running the Digital Series press for two years. The company has noticed that the production levels are nearly exact to the publicized numbers, and the equipment has given the company a boost in running variable data. In addition, the digital press features less than five minutes for make-ready.

“One of the things that drew us to this press is the fact that it is so customizable,” Reding said. “As much as I don’t want my operators to tinker with things and just set it and let it go, there are different variables that we run into like different substrates, different times of season with the environment. You have to have the customizability and the flexibility in a piece of equipment to handle any of those obstacles that come your way. That’s one of the advantages to a Mark Andy press.”

The Digital Series runs up to 250 fpm (76 m/m) in CMYK and between 150 and 170 fpm when opaque white is added. The hybrid system can handle 13.25” web widths, as well as various substrates like pressure sensitive papers and films, unsupported papers, tag stocks and light cartons.

Reding said that the Digital Series runs 35,000 to 40,000 feet during an 8-hour shift, and WS Packaging completes 50 changeovers per day. In his ROI analysis, Ray Dickinson, vice president of marketing and business development at Mark Andy, approximated that level of production would translate to $3 million of business in a given year, assuming that a label is sold for three cents apiece.

“It’s a really solid and stable piece of equipment,” said Reding. “I have another digital asset from another company, and I will tell you that I spend a lot of time doing color calibrations. With the Mark Andy press, I do it once at the start of each shift.”

Reding also believes that existing press operators can make the transition to the Digital Series, saying that “someone willing to learn and challenge the past paradigm” would make an ideal candidate.

Hanley, in his keynote presentation, stated that Mark Andy is built to troubleshoot many issues that arise with digital, mainly because they can rely on their success with multiple platforms, from flexo printing to various finishing machines. “I think it’s a big advantage that Mark Andy does know your market, and Mark Andy can also support the products,” Hanley said. “They didn’t ask me to say that. I am saying that with faith in my heart that they can do that, and there’s no reason that they shouldn’t be able to do that.

“(Solely) digital print vendors have great difficulty coming up with support mechanisms during the sales process, the post-sales process and even during the prospecting process,” he added.

Hanley added that converters are increasingly going to digital for multiple reasons, with the largest being fast response/lower short run costs. They are also experiencing benefits with inventory reduction and new market development. “Mark Andy’s system is much more than two times faster in process color than the fastest standalone digital press that’s out there, for example,” Hanley said.

In terms of new market development, Hanley cited rapid growth for the digital market. He said that at the current growth rates, digital is expected to account for 12.39% of the market by 2020.

Hanley described Mark Andy as a “protagonist” of UV inkjet printing, saying that inkjet doesn’t have the speed or width limitations of EP digital printing. “Long-term, digital is seen as a good investment,” Hanley said. “I’m not saying inkjet is going to run 100% of things, but inkjet needs to be a lot more involved. With Mark Andy as the carrier of that technology and the capability to do that, this is a fortunate point in time for the Digital Series to come out and be successful.”

Dickinson also explained how several tests have proven that digital can be more cost-effective in less time. A sample run of 20,000 prime labels cost $472 in flexo versus $348 on the Digital Series press. In addition, the study showed a 20% time savings.

According to Hanley, the business model favors smaller label converters going to digital. “Particularly the label converter, the business model isn’t going to suddenly lead to–in the next two or three years–lot of very large converters suddenly going to digital in a big way,” he said. “All of this says good, positive things for what the smaller label converter can do with this.”