Viewpoint - Dave Willcox

While analogue devices are more than sufficient for high volume standardised packaging applications, businesses that need a bespoke approach and want to print short runs of packaging for premium brands require a different model - and often that means switching to digital.

In recent years, these kinds of businesses have faced the same core challenge and it's been, if anything, even more prevalent over the last 12 months. Do they spend a fortune buying in digital printing presses that enable them to print their packaging in high quality, on demand, or do they opt to outsource and risk losing control of the creative process?

The majority of businesses, unable to afford the high upfront costs of buying in their own equipment, choose the latter option. But this brings its own problems.

Once they take the decision to outsource, businesses inevitably lose control of the job they are working on. They can't, for example, change their order very easily, from 750 boxes to 1,000. There may be delays in supply that they will be powerless to do anything about. To overcome this, the business will inevitably over-order, which results in wastage. And that in turn will mean significant extra costs for the business concerned. Premium packaging is not cheap, involving multiple processes post print such as lamination, addition of a spot colour and foil blocking.

An increasingly viable option
The market may be young, but it's poised for tremendous growth over the next decade. Research company, Smithers Pira recently found that the total digital market will grow by 225% of its 2013 value by 2024. Based on current dollar value, anticipated volume of sales would approximate $294.8 billion.

In our view, what's been driving the growth during 2014 is the capability of smaller digital printing devices to do much of the work high end digital production presses can do at a fraction of the price. Digital printers can today handle a lot of the processes that were previously exclusive to digital production presses. It's relatively easy to modify the order - to add another 50 boxes, for example, and to do so at short notice. Businesses can adapt immediately to serve their target market; they can bespoke the order to the precise requirements of their customers. Most important of all, by bringing jobs in-house, they can retain creative control.

Not all about the technology
The benefits of technology are clear, but for many businesses there are a range of other barriers to overcome before they can start reaping the rewards of switching to digital printing. Within the packaging industry, we are still seeing a widespread lack of awareness of the devices and their benefits. Often, they lack the knowledge and understanding that there are digital printers available today that are capable of meeting their needs for high quality short run printing.

Even where they do have that understanding, many such businesses lack the in-house creative capability to take advantage of the printers and use them to create bespoke packaging tailored to their customers' needs. Only by putting a combination of digital skills and digital technology in place can packaging businesses really start making the most of creative short run printing.

Today and tomorrow
Digital printing is in a good place currently, with growth projections and the right technology increasingly in place to facilitate that growth. There are challenges, of course, not least the lack of market awareness, and widespread skills shortages; but overall it's a positive picture. What is likely to make it even more positive in the future is the innovation that we are now seeing across the industry. At OKI, we have been in the forefront of this throughout 2014, as we continue to roll out our pioneering 5-colour digital LED SRA3 printers.

This kind of solution, with its ability to print in white or clear on coloured media, is ideally suited to the packaging environment, where designs that really stand out from the competition are so important. OKI has recently been working with its long-standing partner, The Magic Touch, to print white onto transfer media for use on a range of specialised substrates including glass bottles, leather and plastics, paving the way for ever more innovative packaging materials.

Looking to the future, there are likely to be great opportunities for businesses to take advantage of the many benefits that digital printing can potentially deliver. As long as they ensure they put the right in-house capability in place and select a printer that is closely matched to the need and allows them to be creative and innovative in the way they print, they can unleash their creativity and use it to develop packaging that allows them to really stand out from the crowd.

www.okieurope.com

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