Word out of this year’s Drupa Conference in Duesseldorf is that digital print is continuing to make greater inroads into the printing industry. Like all things in life today, change is the constant driving the march forward to digital printing over traditional off-set printing. Customer requirements are changing from big runs to shorter runs.
Terry Mitchell from Fujifilm North America points out that sales of digital equipment continue to grow. He also states:
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“Print providers focused on short-run and fast turnaround, largely through online e-commerce platforms, are displacing incumbent technologies and are a growing segment of the market,” Mitchell observed. “Demand for short run books has created opportunities for digital printing, and printers are leveraging digital print capabilities to deliver unique, personalized, short runs of high value add print output such as pocket folders, calendars, and posters. Another area where digital technology is displacing traditional print methods is in packaging applications. Digital inkjet is displacing traditional flexo printing for production of labels, and offset printing is being displaced by production of folding carton and corrugated applications with digital print methods.”[/box]
The areas most printers large and small need to take advantage is the variable data applications of digital print. Have you shared with your customers the ability to personalize messaging to their clients with a short-run variable data print run?
The challenge with transitioning from offset to digital is how digital media interacts with finishing applications. Do you have the right laminating film for digital applications? Does your UV Coating fluid adhere to your digital printer? If you are doing wide format printing using a flatbed, is your UV Curable ink printing on your substrate?
Digital is ideal for printers and customers. The short run, variable data application of digital print allows everyone to adapt to change. Some things require a little extra thought has you go through the change.
