Facing a digital future

9 July 2008


Digital printing and increased service to customers will assume the utmost importance as self-adhesive label printers battle to meet future challenges, label ‘guru’ Mike Fairley told FINAT’s recent 50th anniversary congress in Paris.

The self-adhesives’ trade association themed the event a ‘Rendezvous with the Future’ and the director of strategic services for labels group Tarsus placed digitisation techniques firmly at the forefront of future developments.

“Around 200 new narrow web digital presses a year are now being installed – about 14 per cent of all new narrow web presses – and there will be in excess of 1,000 in use by the end of this year, rising to more than 2,000 by 2012. High speed jet colour ink will drive further growth. The future for digital label printing looks assured,” he said.

But label manufacturers have much to do to improve their own systems of management as well as increase service levels to customers if they are to grasp the opportunities.

The globalisation trend will continue among the industry’s key companies as brand owners look to have more labels produced where their goods are manufactured, although converters specialising in local or niche markets will probably survive.

Mike Fairley maintained that there were still good growth prospects for the worldwide label industry but in different places to the established markets. Self-adhesives will dominate the number of label suppliers globally and more printers will incorporate other forms of labelling into their operations.

RFID and all kinds of smart labels will see big growth and new developments in nanotechnology will change the face of the industry in the longer term, he added.




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