Doing Digital
Digital printing has found a home in package printing, but will it be a humble dwelling or a palatial estate?
March 2006
by Tom Polischuk
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The world’s going digital; ain’t no doubt about it—at least in my humble opinion. Digital technology has a firm foothold in printing, especially in the front end of the process—in prepress.
Computer-to-plate is firmly entrenched in offset printing and is well on its way in flexo (see “CTP Flexo: Preaching to the Printers,” p. 16). The reasons for this encroachment into prepress are primarily based on cost savings and quality improvement. The future growth of digital printing for packaging and labeling will not only embrace these aspects, but will also include the capability for unique, distinctive graphic and text content that is just not feasible (a.k.a., economical) with more conventional printing.
Where we’re at today
Digitally printed packaging can be seen today in each of the package-printing market segments: tags and labels, flexible packaging, and folding cartons. Of these, label printing is experiencing the highest level of activity.
Ray Dickinson, product marketing manager for HP Indigo, notes that digital printing has been around at a practical level for about 10 years, and estimates that digital printing currently accounts for about 1 percent of worldwide label production. Not quite eye-popping numbers as yet, but he does note that the second half percent came about much faster than the first half percent, and this trend is likely to continue.
Mark Andy’s Product Marketing Manager Ken Daming, breaks digital printing down into two types. “The first is a single color to print numbers, addresses, or bar codes. The second type of digital printing is to print the complete label/package with a digital printing device.”
Daming says most of the interest he sees is in single-color digital printing in labels. “This is printing variable data like a serial number and/or consecutive bar codes,” he says. There is also a growing interest in full-color digital printing, not only in labels, but also in folding cartons, he notes.
Some of the growing use of full-color digital printing is invariably coming from market segmentation and regional marketing. In answering the question, “What is driving digital printing in the packaging market?” Xeikon’s Filip Weymans, business development manager - labels, says, “Increased results (sales) by having a short time to market for each product, and by addressing a segmented audience. Through this way, marketers can respond quickly to regional events. This market approach creates the need for medium to short runs and also quick turnarounds, a perfect match with digital printing.”
Computer-to-plate is firmly entrenched in offset printing and is well on its way in flexo (see “CTP Flexo: Preaching to the Printers,” p. 16). The reasons for this encroachment into prepress are primarily based on cost savings and quality improvement. The future growth of digital printing for packaging and labeling will not only embrace these aspects, but will also include the capability for unique, distinctive graphic and text content that is just not feasible (a.k.a., economical) with more conventional printing.
Where we’re at today
Digitally printed packaging can be seen today in each of the package-printing market segments: tags and labels, flexible packaging, and folding cartons. Of these, label printing is experiencing the highest level of activity.
Ray Dickinson, product marketing manager for HP Indigo, notes that digital printing has been around at a practical level for about 10 years, and estimates that digital printing currently accounts for about 1 percent of worldwide label production. Not quite eye-popping numbers as yet, but he does note that the second half percent came about much faster than the first half percent, and this trend is likely to continue.
Mark Andy’s Product Marketing Manager Ken Daming, breaks digital printing down into two types. “The first is a single color to print numbers, addresses, or bar codes. The second type of digital printing is to print the complete label/package with a digital printing device.”
Daming says most of the interest he sees is in single-color digital printing in labels. “This is printing variable data like a serial number and/or consecutive bar codes,” he says. There is also a growing interest in full-color digital printing, not only in labels, but also in folding cartons, he notes.
Some of the growing use of full-color digital printing is invariably coming from market segmentation and regional marketing. In answering the question, “What is driving digital printing in the packaging market?” Xeikon’s Filip Weymans, business development manager - labels, says, “Increased results (sales) by having a short time to market for each product, and by addressing a segmented audience. Through this way, marketers can respond quickly to regional events. This market approach creates the need for medium to short runs and also quick turnarounds, a perfect match with digital printing.”
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