We’ve all heard the big prediction: one day all printing will be digital, and analog will be a thing of the past. Digital technologies sure have been changing the printing market for many years. Yet here we are today, with both digital and analog processes “in play.” Taking the two processes beyond a mere coexistence, some manufacturers are combining them to glean the best of both worlds.
This purposeful integration of the two technologies has been coined “hybrid printing.” By combining digital and analog assets, printers can achieve the reliability and efficiency of time-tested offset or flexo with the flexibility and graphic variability of new technologies. Hybrid printing techniques are just beginning to emerge in the folding carton space, representing new possibilities and, perhaps, a path to the future.
From Labels to Folding Cartons
Hybrid printing first emerged in the label market a few years back. Combining inkjet and flexographic processes, these technologies offered label printers dual benefits and the ability to achieve them in a single pass. For example, with this equipment, labelers in the craft beer and wine markets could digitally print short runs that had value-added embellishments that only flexo could provide. Check out this article from Printing Impressions for more insight.
After some success in the label market, hybrid techniques are just starting to pop up in the folding carton space, both in terms of new machines and customized, retrofitted solutions.
The Perfect Retrofit
Digital print technology might seem like a highly advanced process that is incompatible with analog, but the truth is that digital can be successfully integrated with analog machines.
Back in July 2018, industry reporter Jackie Schultz wrote an exciting feature for Folding Carton Industry Magazine on Zumbiel Packaging’s flexo-digital “Frankenstein.” A longtime PPC member company, Zumbiel serves the specialty beverage market. That means they require both large formats/high volumes and variable graphics. Unable to find the right printing solution on the market, they decided to build one to fit their needs. After much planning, they were able to retrofit an inkjet press to an existing web flexo press. The very first of its kind, this solution can be run in analog or digital mode. Interjecting a new level of flexibility and speed, the customized solution can carry out large runs with variable graphics—truly combining the best of analog and digital.
Zumbiel has pioneered a new method for moving toward the future of printing. Taking a similar course, converters may be able to pick and choose both analog and digital assets that best suit their business needs—and that’s an exciting prospect.
Standalone Options
Press manufacturers have recognized the need for technology that bridges analog and digital, and that means that new standalone options are becoming available to folding carton manufacturers. PPC member Warneke Paper Box, for example, recently began installing a hybrid press that will allow the Colorado-based converter to choose either digital or offset printing based on job length. A number of industry suppliers have moved in this direction, and we encourage you to meet many of the best at our upcoming Spring Meeting in San Diego!
A Broader Understanding
Beyond thinking about hybrid equipment in particular, it may also be useful to consider the modern folding carton manufacturing operation as a hybrid environment. Many converters have invested in digital presses but have not necessarily connected the two processes on the same machine. Yet we’re still talking about a converting operation where both analog and digital can—and do—offer viable solutions for carton making. In this case, it would behoove operations managers to take a holistic approach: how can jobs be best carried out, understanding that both options may be readily available? Where does it make sense to take a job all digital? Which jobs can benefit from both technologies? By taking the “hybrid environment” approach, converters may more easily adapt to the future—and find cost savings and efficiencies along the way.
Is the Future Hybrid?
So, is hybrid the path to the future? Is it a stepping stone on our way to an all-digital printing environment? It’s intriguing to consider a digital future. Yet analog offers so much value that it’s hard to picture a converting operation without it. Might we have already arrived at the future—or, at least, the near future—with hybrid solutions? Perhaps we don’t have to choose one or the other; we can always choose the best of both worlds. The jury is still out. But in any case, with both analog and digital at our disposal, our industry certainly has a rich set of tools to make the best paperboard packaging we possibly can.