Matthew Rogerson writes: Welcome to the final edition of Converting Today for 2017, and I am sure many of use will be looking forward to the chance to relax, catch our breath and decompress ahead before we get to go full force again in 2018.
Welcome to the final edition of Converting Today for 2017, and I am sure many of use will be looking forward to the chance to relax, catch our breath and decompress ahead before we get to go full force again in 2018.
There has been a series of evolutions that have been taking place throughout the last 12 months or so that are beginning to make a big impact, one that will almost certainly register next year, and this has been across the run sizes of orders. The mentality has shifted from the reach of “no job too big” to the current, “no job to small”. Each have their own requirements and technical issues , each bring a number of opportunities to the converters and suppliers that are best placed to address them.
Take printing for example. The rise of digital and its ability to print just one of something that is highly personalised is well documented . In fact the worldstar winner of the presidents award this year was able to print the days headlines on their coffee packaging in Brazil, which is an extraordinary feat of engineering and timing, that was not possible 5 or 10 years ago. On the other hand there are still a number of large volume print jobs that would send costs spiralling if they were attempted by digital, such as in tobacco , pharmaceutical and some of the larger household goods products which see runs in the hundreds of thousands and more. The common denominator in all these cases is the consumer.
But how best to be able to fufill the wishes of the consumer whilst still being able to manufacture a high quality product in the volume and time frames required? This is where the challenge and opportunity lies, as by addressing these factors, suppliers will quickly become vital to their customers plans to meet consumers needs. Of course it is far more complicated than simply making exactly what the end consumer wants, as the pack might not fulfil its purpose retain integrity or otherwise fail in its primary need to protect a good from a to b. But by putting consumers first some of the inefficiencies in production that were tolerated previously can be reduced or even removed, leading to a more agile reactive converting sector.
In our ultimate edition we cover printing, both digital and flexographic as well as taking a look at the latest developments in inks and adhesives and we finish with a view from Eurosac’s president on opportunities and trends in paper.