The packaging and label manufacturing industry is on the brink of a significant transformation as three industry leaders — Fiery, Esko, and Global Inkjet Systems (GIS) — are on a mission to feed an innovation stream that will help packaging and label manufacturers overcome many of the printing challenges keeping them up at night.

The collaboration leverages Fiery’s market-proven expertise in digital front ends (DFEs), GIS’ proficiency in developing advanced and agile printhead and fluid control systems, and Esko’s advanced color management, workflow, and inspection technologies to create a solution that can be quickly integrated into inkjet presses to optimize production printing across the production floor — from prepress to press control.

Addressing Core Challenges

Björn Willems, Esko’s senior director of global accounts and strategic partners, sees the difficulties facing printed packaging and label manufacturers as falling into four main categories: labor, run length, personalization capability, and sustainable manufacturing demands.

While the labor market may have softened for some industries and roles, packaging manufacturers still fiercely compete for skilled operators to run their conventional printing presses. The demand for experienced press operators remains high — creating a bottleneck that can impede production timelines and increase costs.

Meanwhile, increasing shopper anxiety about the economy is fueling brands’ desires to find custom packaging that not only stands out on shelves but also resonates with consumers on a personal level. This trend has significantly increased the demand for shorter print runs and more personalized packaging options.

Sustainability, too, is a critical concern. Willems explains the push for greener practices is compelling converters to explore new methods, such as printing with water-based inks and utilizing environmentally friendly materials. These changes are not just about compliance but are also key to meeting brands’ expectations and securing long-term business success.

Using Digital to Capture Opportunity

These challenges aren’t without their upside. “The move to shorter runs and the rise of personalization in packaging (VDP) present opportunities for selling packaging with higher margins,” Willems says. This shift not only allows for more customized and engaging packaging solutions but also opens the door for manufacturers to increase profitability by offering digitally printed, premium products.

Mike Robinson, senior product manager at Fiery, agrees with Willems on the opportunity for package manufacturers. “This is a new opportunity for converters to sell both more relevant and profitable packaging applications,” Robinson says. However, he recognizes that the solution can present new hurdles for label and package printing companies.

“For many converters, digital is a new technology,” Robinson adds. “They need to understand how workflow, job setup, color management, and other processes need to evolve. This is in addition to adding completely new processes such as setting up files for personalized packaging. Compound that with the need to train existing operators on a new technology that leverages more computer functions and involves less manual work like changing plates. Plus, the challenge of maintaining press performance while the quantity of input is increasing exponentially in parallel with the introduction of shorter runs and personalized prints.”

Simon Edwards, commercial director at GIS, adds that converters can also face issues with poor image quality if printheads are not functioning correctly.

Learning from History

Luckily, the package and label printing industry can benefit from lessons hard-learned by other printing segments. “The challenges in packaging are similar to those faced in the commercial print market 30 years ago,” Robinson explains. Like today’s package printers, commercial printers saw customers demanding fantastic color that met and exceeded brand standards, business conditions requiring high productivity with presses running at full capacity, and the need for systems that are easy to learn and use.

Of further benefit to the label and package manufacturing community, the partners in this strategic collaboration have more than 75 years of combined experience in the printing industry, including pioneering the digital printing revolution for the aforementioned commercial printing market. According to Robinson, Fiery has been the digital front end (DFE) innovator pioneering the transition from analog to digital for commercial printers.

Robinson adds, “This experience gives us the technical foundation and history of innovation for these types of market-shifting challenges, which is why Fiery is a natural choice to help the packaging market seize these new business opportunities.”

Fiery Impress is a real-world tested and proven, flexible, scalable DFE. While Fiery Impress is designed to support industrial inkjet production, Robinson explains, the DFE can also be wholly customized to press requirements and capabilities — including RIP performance to drive presses at maximum speeds, custom screening based on press resolution and ink drop size, image-based missing nozzle and density compensation that ensure real-world manufacturing conditions won’t impact a printing operation’s performance, operator-friendly color workflow options that help converters ensure consistent, accurate color output, VDP streaming, and much more.

Esko builds onto this heritage with a proven reputation for artwork analysis, color management, workflow automation, and the implementation of cutting-edge technologies in cloud environments. “Esko’s color management and workflow automation is fully cloud-enabled, which gives multi-site printers operational flexibility,” Willems says. “Esko’s color management solutions enable printers to match flexo, offset, or gravure jobs on a digital press by measuring a physical sample. Using AI, a color profile can be adjusted on the fly to ensure precise color matching.” Esko can also analyze the artwork, tell whether a digital system can print the job, and even visually show the color deviations in a browser environment.”

Edwards points out that GIS provides high-speed electronics to drive printheads at their highest print speed and best performance, along with a range of tools to measure and compensate for any shifts in image quality, high-speed screeners for rapid image processing to support variable data and streaming of data, AI tools that can predict potential issues before they occur — to allow early action that can reduce downtime — and integrated software and electronics that work together for maximum performance.

Elevating the Package Manufacturing Industry

Given the extensive benefits this partnership offers, Fiery, Esko, and GIS understand that it might be challenging to grasp the full scope of its impact. To clarify how this collaboration will revolutionize the packaging market, Robinson distills the partnership to its essence: “This partnership provides a turnkey, end-to-end packaging workflow for both customers and press manufacturers. For customers, investing in a new press is a simplified experience. Choosing this integration provides a ready-to-go solution across the production floor, from prepress workflow and color management, to the DFE, and then through printhead/press control and ink/fluid systems. For press manufacturers, working with Esko, Fiery, and GIS allows them to focus on their core competencies and reduce their development efforts. This allows them to bring innovative printing solutions to the market faster.”

Edwards underscores the significance of the integration mentioned by Robinson and the breadth of products the partnership brings to the table. He points out both printing press manufacturer customers and the end users — label and package converters — will benefit from powerful performance improvements, support from a global team of industry experts, and “complete and comprehensive solutions.”

Willems highlights how this partnership will invigorate the package printing industry’s innovation pipeline, accelerating the journey from concept to production. This faster route to innovation “will allow converters and printers investing in a digital press to seamlessly integrate the press into their production environment and achieve the quickest time to value.”

Learning More About the Revolution to Come

Clearly, the collaboration between Fiery, Esko, and GIS is poised to transform how package and label manufacturers print.