The Corrugated Crossroads: Navigating Economics, Efficiency, and Innovation

By: Kristen Minlschmidt, Web-fed Inkjet Packaging Product Marketing, HP PageWide Industrial

In recent years, the corrugated industry has experienced a surge in demand for high graphics boxes with a simultaneous decrease in order quantities requested. As converters explore the prospect of investing in new printing equipment to keep up with demand and drive business growth, the decision-making process is heavily influenced by several factors.

In a rapidly evolving market, the need for agility and flexibility is paramount. A new printing press must not only accommodate diverse job requirements but also seamlessly adapt to dynamic market demands. Converters recognize the significance of reducing manufacturing costs as a key factor in enhancing overall operational efficiency and ensuring long-term profitability. Labor shortage challenges further underscore the importance of investing in technology that streamlines operations and minimizes dependence on manual processes. Additionally, sustainability concerns weigh heavily on your commitment to environmentally responsible practices, requiring that a new press align with your goals of reducing waste, energy consumption, and overall environmental impact.

As a converter, your investment decision is a strategic move aimed at future-proofing your operations, ensuring adaptability to market dynamics, and upholding your commitment to sustainable and efficient packaging solutions. So, what direction do you take?

Flexo and Litho: The Reigning Technologies

Traditionally, the corrugated industry has relied on flexographic and lithographic printing for their well-established capabilities. Flexo, the cost-effective workhorse, excels in large-volume runs, providing efficiency and a steady hand in quality. Meanwhile, litho has been the go-to for applications where quality is non-negotiable. Both methods can be employed across a vast array of box types, from intricate folding cartons to robust corrugated boxes; until now, making it almost certain that the boxes we see and use daily—whether for shipping, storing, or display—have been touched by these processes.

While flexo and litho technologies have advanced through the years to meet industry needs, neither is without its challenges. Litho is heavily impacted by extended setup and make-ready times and flexo continues to face prolonged setup times and higher initial costs associated with the creation, handling, and storage of printing plates. The required use of printing plates also creates a barrier to efficiently addressing the growing demand for shorter production runs and the need for flexibility in response to evolving market trends. Retaining qualified press professionals remains a persistent challenge as well, as the industry deals with changing workforce demographics and a demand that often outpaces the supply of these highly skilled professionals. Sustainability concerns also loom large, with flexo and litho printing processes consuming significant resources and often generating high waste levels.

Digital Printing: A New Era

Converters now have a new investment option to consider: digital printing. Though often associated with low-volume, high-value applications, single-pass inkjet technology changed the digital game by boosting production speeds while maintaining top-notch quality, in turn reducing production costs and empowering converters to economically handle higher volume orders.

HP’s portfolio of PageWide Web-fed Packaging Presses use innovative thermal inkjet technology and offer a unique opportunity to streamline costs and time in the printing process and improve the efficiency of downstream operations. Having removed the constraints associated with plates, tooling, and prolonged setup times, multiple jobs can now effortlessly be batched and digitally printed within a single roll, while maintaining the high efficiency of a long run on the corrugator through innovative corrugator controls.

Transitioning from discrete printing of corrugated boxes, where one job is completed at a time, to batch printing, where multiple jobs are processed simultaneously, offers several key advantages. Batch printing augments efficiency by minimizing setup and changeover times. This leads to quicker turnaround times and lower minimum order quantity requirements, empowering converters to deliver greater agility to their customers without the burden of producing or storing excess inventory. Considering a typical litho press spends extensive time doing make-readies, digital preprint’s ability to batch the shorter run length orders frees up that time and capacity, leading to better asset utilization. Similarly, in a flexo environment up to 20% capacity in converting can be released when running digital preprint by removing the make-ready time on the flexo units and running the machines faster with the flexo in bypass.

The challenge is to introduce this multi-job roll into the production system without negatively impacting downstream operations. Solutions like HP One Package workflow software enable the digital printing process to take place under the control of existing factory management and planning systems, while communicating with other production processes to handle the digitally preprinted rolls as efficiently as brown box jobs. Additionally, only digital can print unique marks on each box that can be used for converting set-ups, quality control and waste monitoring, which plays a crucial role in the digitization of the box plant.

The advantages of digital preprint extend far beyond the operational benefits. Digital preprint supports converter sustainability goals by eliminating processes, time, and waste to optimize production. HP PageWide Web-fed Presses are equipped with true water-based inks, enabling worry-free production and standard post-consumer processing to support packaging industry circularity needs. Finally, digital print brings about labor benefits through increased efficiency, reduced skill dependencies, automation opportunities, and a more adaptable and sustainable production environment.

Choosing Your Path

Now, as converters stand at this crossroads, it's about finding the right balance for their needs. Flexo may remain the go-to for large-scale, cost-effective runs, just as litho still delivers when precision and quality are non-negotiable. But here's the exciting part – digital print is the key to unlocking greater agility, higher operational efficiency, and reduced environmental impact.

Advancements in digital print technology have transformed inkjet into a dynamic solution, poised to revolutionize the landscape of box production. The driving force behind this digital wave is the changing nature of run lengths and the supply chain efficiencies it can deliver through reduced minimum order quantities and faster turnaround times. Moreover, the HP PageWide Web-fed Packaging Presses open the door for streamlining operations through batch manufacturing to foster cost-effectiveness and agility in response to market fluctuations. Converters who have not recently explored the benefits of digital preprint may be unaware of the many innovations and advancements that have been introduced over the past few years and its worth revisiting.

This isn't about replacing what works – it's about enhancing your capabilities. The digital disruption is here and it's time for your corrugated packaging to evolve. The key is understanding when to leverage the strengths of each technology and find the harmonious balance that propels you into a new era of possibilities.