Education circuit

Danielle Jerschefske reports from a series of conferences and user group events in North America

Dscoop6: HP Indigo annual conference

The sixth annual Digital Solutions Cooperative members’ conference hosted 2,000 print partners and digital equipment users to Orlando, Florida. The group now has a total global membership base of 5,500 people from 42 countries, and offers numerous ways to educate a printer’s teams and clients. In 2010 HP Indigo hosted its first Dscoop Asia where it had attendance similar to past US-based conferences. The Dscoop board of directors views the cross pollination of the Dscoop community as the strongest opportunity for growth amongst members who already have driven the value proposition of digital within various sectors of the print community.

Tailored Solutions is a preferred HP Indigo partner for label and packaging converters. As digital technology continues to evolve, the capability of MIS to improve throughput and streamline digital workflow by managing complex orders becomes essential. The company estimates that about 15 percent of its LabelTraxx clients have HP Indigos. The MIS provider recently integrated with RotoMetrics to give customers access to real-time die estimates and automated order entry.

HP Indigo says that China is its second largest market after the US. The market experienced 70 percent growth in the last five years attributed to global companies with locations there (see Avery Dennison RBIS feature). Brazil, Korea and India each have more than 100 Indigo machines installed.

In the label & packaging track sessions it became clear that the biggest issue with regard to digital adoption is still the ability to educate the market (users and buyers) on what’s possible with the technology. Cutting edge Indigo users and their customers stressed the importance of hiring a marketing person when it comes to building a converter brand, creating loyalty and gaining a quick return on capital investments.

Ed Wiegand, VP of sales for Sancoa, told delegates, ‘You have to understand who you are talking to. The converter recently flipped the St.Ives line of products from multiple spot color flexography to 4CP digital liquid toner.

Brand designers are a way to reach the CPCs because they interact directly with marketing teams responsible for changing packaging and engaging consumers. The St. Ives brand manager was interested in package robustness and speed-to-replenishment. Procurement was only interested in cost. In order to make the transition, which helped the converter improve margins, Sancoa had to change how it influenced its customer.

The converter worked closely with the brand’s design team to shift color acceptance to what can be achieved using 7-colors or HP’s Indichrome system. The shift was a win-win for supplier and customer. Said Wiegand, ‘We charged 20 percent more per unit, but the total cost was seven percent less.’

EFI Connect Users’ Conference 2011

EFI welcomed over 1,200 international attendees to its 12th annual users’ conference in Las Vegas to view a variety of its software and hardware product lines. It demonstrated its end-to-end workflow live, provided hands-on educational sessions and printed labels on a Jetrion 4830 machine. Label industry supplier partners Flexcon, Honle UV America, AzTech Converting Systems and Spartanics laser die cutting equipment were on hand to share the potential that the industrial print market holds.

EFI claims to be the world’s largest supplier of print management software with annual sales of $54m. Marc Olin, EFI senior vice president and general manager of advanced professional print software, explained that the company is seeing fulfillment as the biggest need in the printing industry.

Sean Skelly attended the conference for the first time as vice president and general manager of the EFI Jetrion narrow web digital inkjet series of presses. Skelly said, ‘Digital is changing the world of labels and packaging.  And unlike other printing sectors, labels and packaging is here to stay.’ He predicted that commercial printers will follow the trend of ‘convergence’ and move into the digital label market. The event marked the first official gathering of the Jetrion digital inkjet press Customer Advisory Board.

This was the first joint user conference for EFI Radius and EFI Jetrion customers since the Radius acquisition last year. EFI is working to integrate EFI XFlow and Fiery workflow software with Radius’ ERP/MIS systems to help label and packaging customers streamline the different materials – labels, cartons, pouches – found in their workflow. It will also look to leverage the strengths of Radius solutions for the Jetrion systems and their customers.

Chris O’Brien from York Label, a $250m multi-national label converter with 1,000 employees and multiple locations, is rolling out Radius software into each of its locations. He said, ‘this is the type of information technology that enables our people and drives business. It gives us visibility and transparency throughout the supply chain, allowing us to grow revenue.’

The event’s opening keynote session was an open and informal dialogue between EFI CEO Guy Gecht and Adobe president and CEO Shantanu Narayen.  Gecht asked: ‘how do we create business that matters?’ Narayen replied, ‘it’s all about creating digital experiences across multiple platforms and devices, and about addressing the workflow of digital content.’ Narayan continued to explain the importance of managing content on mobile devices, the ability to print from them and provide personalized content that people want. ‘In the future content will need to be more tailored.’

FTA 2011 Annual Forum

The FTA hosted 1,600 package printers, label converters and their suppliers at its highest attended annual Forum to date. A number of digital printing machine manufacturers exhibited at the tabletop sessions for the first time, including Roland and Epson, showing the progression of the technology in the marketplace as a complementary platform to flexography.

EskoArtwork’s VP of technology and color scientist, Mark Samworth, was inducted as the 49th member of the FTA Hall of Fame. Samworth traces his roots in the printing industry to Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. He is an active advocate of color consistently and standardization in the flexographic printing process. Samworth hosted a short session on extended color gamut printing, which he says is growing in adoption in the flexible packaging and label production markets.

Best of Show 2011 Excellence in Flexography winners included Cellotape Inc for its Syntax Spirits Vodka; Label Technology Inc for its John Frieda Frizz Ease Overnight Repair packet; and Clemson University for The Phoenix label.

The FTA awarded three Environmental Excellence Awards. Both Paragon Label and Prairie State Group won for Process Improvement. Poly Cello won for Technical Innovation. Poly Cello was selected for its proprietary SmartPack technology that gives the look of lamination but only uses one layer of material, allowing flexible packaging to be recycled in established waste streams.

PLGA Global Operational Conference

The PLGA (Packaging and Label Gravure Association) Global inducted its first CPC representative and first female as president at its annual 2011 Operational Conference. PLGA’s new president, Annette Crampton, is the graphics manager at MillerCoors located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is a long time association participant, an active board member and a proponent of gravure technology in the label and packaging industry.  The two-day conference, titled ‘Managing the Global Challenge with Gravure – The Sustainable Choice’, kicked-off with a presentation from Guy McGuffin, Walmart Canada’s VP of sustainability. McGuffin introduced the audience to the global retailer’s Sustainability Joint Business Plan Program, where Walmart collaborates with its vendors to create more sustainable packaging systems. Examples include eliminating UV coatings and using low VOC inks on paperboard materials. He noted that the global retailer is looking to eliminate PVC from all of its private label products in Canada and is looking to make PET thermoform recycling a reality once research of compatible, non-contaminating labels is completed. The overall message was loud and clear: Walmart will be ‘packaging neutral’ by 2025 ‑all packaging waste will be recycled so there is no footprint in this area.

Subsequent presentations shared converter and brand owner environmental management system case studies and suppliers offered technical evaluations of new technologies designed to reduce energy and waste to help gravure label and package print converters lower their environmental footprint.

Pictured: Delta Industrial shows its digital finishing solutions at Dscoop6

This article was published in L&L issue 3, 2011