How Packaging Producers are Looking at Digital Printing

Kevin Karstedt

Karstedt Partners has launched a benchmarking study designed to help early adopters identify and implement best practices and improve their production and sales operations to take best advantage of their digital investments. In “Making Decisions about the Next Wave of Digital Printing: Solutions for Flexible Packaging, Folding Cartons, Corrugated Packaging and Displays: Data from the Trenches Instead of from Marketing Materials,” Kevin Karstedt will describe the current state of digital for these sectors, based on the data gathered from the research study

“While the specific tools and even some of the technologies are different for the various sectors, the business and manufacturing dynamics are very similar,” says Karstedt.

The session will take place Thursday, October 24^th at 1:00pm in Room C145.

Digital printing for labels has been around since the late 1990s, with the ramp up slow but steady, Karstedt explains. Today, digital printing is used by a high percentage of label producers, with the majority of presses purchased digital for this sector in the past two years. Even still, researchers estimate that digital will account for only 6 percent of all the labels printed.

The corrugated and display sectors are gaining a lot of momentum, with estimates of 33 single pass digital presses in that sector in North America most installed in the past two years. There are another 70+ multi-pass production presses operating in the corrugated sector and a hand full of web fed presses.

“This presentation will bring to the audience the information they need to have on hand, regardless of the sector they serve, whether they are developing an offensive or defensive digital strategy, or even if they’re just kicking the tires,” says Karstedt.