Taking a pragmatic approach to digital corrugated

By Jeff Wettersten, VP Packaging, Keypoint Intelligence

Brands are increasingly viewing digital as a viable option for their corrugated offerings, which leads to significant new opportunities for converters.

And with single-pass digital corrugated continuing to gain traction, you have buyers providing endorsements to the technology and looking more and more to digital providers to help them on their journey.

So why are converters still hesitant to change? And what should they be considering?

With a long background spent in corrugated, it’s these sorts of questions I’ll be addressing in a pragmatic approach with my keynote address at the Koenig & Bauer Durst SPC Open House at the Durst Innovation Center East in Lienz, Austria, on 19 March.

The corrugated value chain is still in the early stages of understanding and deploying digital printing.

The market is asking for a predictive model related to digital adoption, and while models exist on what needs to occur for new technologies to achieve success in the market, outcomes can be predicted, but the timing required to deliver the desired outcome remains elusive.

Other discussion points at the SPC Open House will include what should the supply chain be watching for in terms of market adoption, the significance of the change occurring, and what the implication of this change for future adoption.

The corrugated industry, like many others, has been optimized to deliver high volume at low cost. I do not see the core purpose of high volume at low cost changing, but I do see the approach on how to deliver high volume at low cost changing.

Speed, flexibility and agility are now a requirement. Brands, enabled by new operating models serving e-commerce markets are seeking to leverage the operating responsiveness from their e-commerce activities into their core markets.

Many of these changes are enabled by IoT (Internet of Things) initiatives supported by the collection and dissemination of big data analysed and driven by AI. Couple these changes with sustainability, the geographic shifts in where products are historically produced and pending legislative initiatives and it all adds up to a challenging business environment for converters.

Where and how digital printing is being used today, and how it is being positioned for future deployment across the packaging value chain, provokes a lot of interest.

I recently conducted interviews with a broad cross section of Narrow Web Label converters.  Across the 140 or so interviews conducted, 72% of the interviewees still see the future of digital printing as either disruptive or transformational.  Many converters stated a digital press is now required for every two to three flexo presses on their floor.

When asked how digital printing can still be disruptive to the industry 25 years after introduction, one label converter simply stated, “it forced our organization to think beyond the label”. His message, “it opened up whole new opportunities for our business, beyond the product itself.  We could compete in these new opportunities, but it required digital printing.  Our competitor down the street without digital printing could no longer compete”.

If you are ready to “think beyond the printed box”, we look forward to an interactive discussion at the Koenig & Bauer Durst SPC Open House.