More Than Just RFID
Start thinking now about how printed electronics will affect your business.
October 2007 by Chris Mc Loone
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The RFID star isn’t shining quite as brightly as it was when Wal-Mart mandated that crates and pallets from its top 100 suppliers carry RFID tags. Once heralded as the next big thing in packaging, RFID usage still has not made it all the way down to the item level on a widespread basis. Still, it incorporates one of the first implementations of printed electronics and comes to mind for many when printed electronics is mentioned. However, printed electronics does not just mean RFID, and package printers may want to educate themselves now about it to become experts before their competition does. While the RFID star does not shine as brightly now, it and many other printed electronics applications, may affect your business in years to come.
Why it is important
Anything that can impact your business for better or worse is important. The technologies involved with printed electronics are now within converters’ grasps. Dr. Peter Harrop, chairman, IDTechEx, states that the extent of printed electronics’ impact on package printers relies on the printers themselves. “It depends on what package printers are prepared to do—print with electronic inks, or laminate electronic films? It’s a lot or nothing, depending on how small a corner they paint themselves into.”
Jackie Marolda, senior consultant for AWA Alexander Watson Associates, adds, “The fight for consumer attention in retail environments is fierce. “Printed electronics in packaging is a fairly low-cost, printable component that package printers can offer and glean value from in their operations.”
Applications exist NOW
In its study titled “Printed Electronics—On Track to a Major Industry,” IDTechEx analysts state that “printed electronics will commonly take the form of tape, ‘wallpaper,’ posters, packages, and packaging rather than electronic equipment.” It goes on to declare that, “the biggest opportunity for printed electronics is for versions on flexible paper or polymer substrates because these will become lowest in cost and most suitable physically for the largest volume applications in [the] future such as smart labels, smart packaging, books, newspapers, signage, posters, and billboards.”
These statements are forward-looking, but there are already applications for packaging in what Harrop describes as a small, but fast-growing market.
“For example, time/date stamping can become a ‘real-time’ capability with the use of printed electronics, allowing for greater assurance of quality and freshness on temperature-sensitive goods like foods, pharmaceuticals, photographic materials, and chemicals,” says Marolda.
Why it is important
Anything that can impact your business for better or worse is important. The technologies involved with printed electronics are now within converters’ grasps. Dr. Peter Harrop, chairman, IDTechEx, states that the extent of printed electronics’ impact on package printers relies on the printers themselves. “It depends on what package printers are prepared to do—print with electronic inks, or laminate electronic films? It’s a lot or nothing, depending on how small a corner they paint themselves into.”
Jackie Marolda, senior consultant for AWA Alexander Watson Associates, adds, “The fight for consumer attention in retail environments is fierce. “Printed electronics in packaging is a fairly low-cost, printable component that package printers can offer and glean value from in their operations.”
Applications exist NOW
In its study titled “Printed Electronics—On Track to a Major Industry,” IDTechEx analysts state that “printed electronics will commonly take the form of tape, ‘wallpaper,’ posters, packages, and packaging rather than electronic equipment.” It goes on to declare that, “the biggest opportunity for printed electronics is for versions on flexible paper or polymer substrates because these will become lowest in cost and most suitable physically for the largest volume applications in [the] future such as smart labels, smart packaging, books, newspapers, signage, posters, and billboards.”
These statements are forward-looking, but there are already applications for packaging in what Harrop describes as a small, but fast-growing market.
“For example, time/date stamping can become a ‘real-time’ capability with the use of printed electronics, allowing for greater assurance of quality and freshness on temperature-sensitive goods like foods, pharmaceuticals, photographic materials, and chemicals,” says Marolda.
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