Digital press acquisitions in the US driven by desire for operational improvements

The study has identified an estimated 28 percent of all narrow web jobs printed in the US marketplace today are less than 5,000 linear feet. This percentage has doubled over the last five years. In this light, respondents overall identified digital printing as the most influential technology to the future of narrow web flexo converters’ businesses.

Richard Black, director of Digital Solutions at APR, commented: ‘The market is changing quickly and for most narrow web converters that haven’t yet invested in digital print technology it is not an issue of “if” but an issue of “when”.’

Available to Labelexpo Americas 2016 attendees visiting the APR stand, #937, the Narrow Web Flexo Production and Digital Printing study has also primary market and customer challenges, and the most persistent operations’ issues on flexo shop production floors. The research additionally addressed the parameters label printers are bringing to the digital print technology acquisition process and how converters rank those drivers.

Lead times, run lengths and print quality are identified as the most significant market and customer challenges, with downtime the most significant operational issue. The first phase of the research identified that the average press downtime rate for narrow web converters is currently 32 percent, with more frequent changeovers from the growing volume of short run work and late-stage scheduling changes the top reasons given for downtime. Given such a high downtime rate due to set-up and make-ready, the second phase of the research closely examined label converters’ primary production bottlenecks.

Dave Nieman, APR president and CEO, explained: ‘We had a number of objectives in carrying out this research. First, APR wanted to identify what the most urgent issues are for narrow web companies. Are converters’ customers demanding lead times and run lengths that are a challenge to provide? What are converters’ most significant production bottlenecks? We wanted to take a close look at the issues that impact the productivity of narrow web flexo and how companies are tracking and measuring things like downtime reduction, prepress efficiencies and make-ready times.

‘Secondly, we wanted to understand what exactly pushes label converters to purchase their first, or their next, digital label press. Is it because companies need to have the same offering as their competitors? Is it primarily an issue of being able to offer an optimum short run solution?

‘There are more digital printing technology options in the marketplace than ever before and it’s critical that suppliers of this technology clearly understand the market influences and production requirements that are driving the decisions of our customers and prospects.’

The study was conducted on behalf of APR by Texas-based LPC, asking label printers and converters throughout the US about the drivers of digital press acquisitions in addition to key flexo production benchmarking metrics.

APR is a resource for technologies, service, and support to the flexographic printing industry, and represents a diverse portfolio of products from suppliers, from platemaking and digital platemaking, mounting and proofing, and color management, to pressroom cleaning and flexo-digital hybrid printing. APR’s offering in the narrow web market includes the Colordyne Technologies’ 3600 Series retrofit system, which allows converters to transform their existing flexo press into a hybrid option. The system is on show on the APR stand at Labelexpo Americas 2016, as reported here.

Nieman added: ‘We are making this data available to label converters because it reinforces what we believe is APR’s greatest asset to our customers and prospects. We are a team of professionals with highest-level expertise that provides resources, services and solutions to our customers throughout the narrow web marketplace.’

Labelexpo Americas 2016 runs until September 15 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois.

If you can’t make it to Labelexpo Americas 2016, keep checking www.labelsandlabeling.com for exclusive news, videos and comment from the show.

An in-depth review of Labelexpo Americas 2016 will feature in L&L issue 5, 2016