The next SPC Open House is at the Durst Innovation Center East, Lienz, from 18-19 March. Contact your local partner or distributor for details. We look forward to welcoming you!
By Robert Stabler, Managing Director, Koenig & Bauer Durst
The landscape of digital production print is being defined by a challenging mix of geopolitical and financial events as well as industry specific trends.
That was among the key observations made by print consultant Sean Smyth at Print Matters – an annual conference, organized by Intergraf, the European association of the national print associations, and the Nordic Printing Association NOPA.
Dr Smyth went on to share a number of industry defining trends that print service providers should be aware of including:
These trends, and the technologies that respond to them, were explored in depth at Koenig & Bauer Durst’s recent SPC Open House on “Digital Transformation in Corrugated Packaging”.
It considered how digital technology, such as the Delta SPC 130 a single pass inkjet press, cost efficiently responds in an agile and flexible way.
And how it delivers a production environment that addresses demand for a greater number of SKUs, increased interest in regionalization, enhanced product life cycle management, and the ability to keep pace with ever-changing regulations.
Technology that quickly produces more shorter run, fast turnaround jobs per day.
Technology that comparison tests have shown saves €2.5m on digital addressable volume, eliminates process waste of up to 160k sqm of board and cuts time with the removal of steps associated with analogue printing such as platemaking.
Uptime and capacity is maximised by a global service organization that provides software and workflow support as well as remote diagnostics and telephone service.
Investment is fully supported with project management, prepress, application and operator training, as well as consulting and coaching.
Digital printing technology enables operational capabilities that respond to these defining trends. It also future proofs operations to be prepared for the fresh challenges that are undoubtedly around the corner.
Würzburg, Germany 10.01.24
Koenig & Bauer and Durst Group have committed to build further R&D capability in the joint venture company they set up almost five years ago to capitalize on the significant opportunities in folding carton and corrugated segments. The parent companies of Koenig & Bauer Durst GmbH will expand its operations in Radebeul, Germany.
Koenig & Bauer Durst is a global market leader of single pass digital sheet-fed press systems and software services for the folding carton and corrugated industry. It leverages the capabilities and know-how of its parent companies to offer an unrivalled portfolio of digital printing machinery that includes the CorruJET and Delta SPC 130 systems for corrugated markets, as well the jointly developed VariJET 106 press for folding carton markets. All presses use water-based food-safe inks & coatings that comply with all regulatory requirements.
Robert Stabler, who has run the joint venture company since its inception, will stand down as Managing Director. He will be succeeded by Daniel Velema, who will join Koenig & Bauer Durst in February 2024. Daniel has extensive domain experience in the printing industry and managing consultancy and has held various senior level management positions. In his last role, Daniel was General Manager of the Prepress activities at XSYS Global, a leading supplier of printing plates, sleeves and prepress equipment for the packaging industry.
Daniel Velema said: “I am really looking forward to joining Koenig & Bauer Durst, which was set up by two technology pioneers in the printing and packaging markets and has a growing presence in the industry. Corrugated and folding carton printers/converters continue to digitize their production environment to increase efficiency, flexibility and to provide a better service to brands and retail. In the long term, this leads to significant cost reductions. Koenig & Bauer Durst’s machinery, software and services offering is well positioned to support and accelerate our customers’ journey and I look forward to working together with our customers, partners and suppliers.”
Christoph Gamper, CEO and Co-owner of the Durst Group, said: “We are looking forward to welcoming Daniel to Koenig & Bauer Durst to drive the company forward to the next stages of development. We see a huge opportunity to grow substantially over the next few years. Solid foundations have been laid with the successful launch of the VariJET 106 press, the most productive folding carton digital press on the market, as well as the adoption of our corrugated presses by some of the world’s most innovative and forward-looking corrugated companies. Robert has been instrumental in developing and leading the joint venture team that has developed high-end systems in fully automatic, industrial-scale production. We want to thank Robert for bringing the joint venture from an idea to a vibrant, standalone company.”
Ralf Sammeck, Koenig & Bauer Board Member and Sheetfed Segment CEO, said: “The spirit embodied by both companies in the joint venture continues to grow. Combining our strengths is driving digitalization in the packaging industry. In building on the initial foundations, we are increasing our capabilities in our R&D center in Radebeul, the headquarters of the Koenig & Bauer Sheetfed division. To take the joint venture to the next level, we are delighted to have appointed Daniel Velema as the new Managing Director from next February.”
Koenig & Bauer Durst expands its R&D capabilities at Koenig & Bauer’s Radebeul site.
Robert said: “Having led the joint venture company for almost five years, I have been proud to lead a committed team of professionals and establish ourselves as a real force in the industry. The fact that our two parent companies – Koenig & Bauer and Durst, two giants in packaging and printing – have committed to further R&D capabilities speaks volumes about the positive impact we have had in growing our presence significantly in corrugated and folding carton markets. These are ripe for digital transformation – and we have a growing customer base to prove that.”
He added: “I thank all staff, partners and our extremely loyal customer base who have shown unstinting as we have continued to grow and establish our global capabilities as a partner of choice across the world. Together with Daniel, there will be a significant handover period in what I am sure will lead to further success and profitability in the months and years to come.”
The Delta SPC 130 single-pass press has won a prestigious Pinnacle Award in the Print Printing United Alliance’s Pinnacle Awards, the most prestigious in the American printing industry!
“Unrivalled versatility, low maintenance requirements and 24/7 print output reliability” was part of the citation from judges.
The Delta SPC 130 single-pass digital printing system for corrugated cardboard applications uses water-based, food safe inks. It has revolutionized packaging printing with high efficiency and flexibility.
By Jochen Sproll, Business Development Manager, Koenig & Bauer Durst
How digital transformation is powering enhanced customer experience and revenue growth
Industry innovators are always in for a highly educational, informative and inspirational SPC Open House at the Durst Innovation Center East in Lienz, Austria. We always want to ensure that the content is both fresh and with latest ‘news’, both from ourselves and for the industry in general.
Our last event had a focus on “Digital Transformation in Corrugated Packaging”. It explored key drivers shaping production demand. It considered, too, how digital technology responds in an agile and flexible way while also ensuring cost efficiency.
Attendees were told how demand for digital printing in packaging is growing in response to the proliferation of SKUs, increased interest in regionalization, enhanced product life cycle management, and the ability to keep pace with the ever-changing regulatory environment.
The result is the need to produce more jobs per day, meet faster turnaround times, deliver shorter run lengths, and manage planning complexity. There is also greater expectation for food safety and circular economy capabilities.
Digital production aids profitability with lower costs for shorter runs, optimised production, reduced waste, and obsolescence. It also requires less working capital and future-proofs production with water-based inks. It elevates customer experience and revenue growth via optimised print and total costs while delivering improved value for the customer.
This is partly due to existing and new trends bringing run lengths down (currently the average run length is 5,000 to 6,000 sqm), better utilization of conventional technology, and clearer total cost of ownership calculation of existing production volume to explore whether an investment will pay off.
For example, when comparing SPC to flexo, the break-even was found to be between 6,500 and 8,500 sqm. Digital printing was cheaper to produce and increased overall production output by 50% and productivity by 25%. The cost saving on digital addressable volume was €2.5m and the payback on the investment in SPC technology was two to three years.
Digital’s ability to focus on automation and standardization of processes with few touch points aids the understanding and optimization of the total cost of supply chain for customers. The streamlined workflow powers smooth operation and delivers a number of production gains:
Digital production supports a collaborative, close working, customer experience with brands. Its ability to produce new test packaging, designs and campaigns quickly enables a better understanding of marketing objectives. It allows the cost effective production of smaller batch sizes and eases the move to supply chain management and partnership (different pricing models based on value of supply chain costs and not volume of boxes produced).
There is also the greater possibility of expanding a brand’s added value applications. In fact, 50% to 80% of volume over time is for new added value applications in the Koenig & Bauer Durst customer base. They include mass customization, sequential barcodes, new product offerings on uncoated board and, as mentioned before, test and promotional packaging.
Kärcher, known for its high-pressure cleaners, is one international brand that has moved the majority of its printing requirements to digital. In 2022, 52% of its jobs were digital compared to just 1% in 2015. As a result, it now benefits from simple data handling with pre-press, uniformed colour consistency, time savings in production without additional costs for printing plates, decreased quantities but increased variants and frequent layout changes due to constantly legal requirements.
Enabling brands to make this transition are operations like Schumacher Group. The family-managed company with sites across Europe registered a record month for production on its Delta SPC 130 in March 2022. In 28 days the press completed 226 jobs and printed 1,346,954.56 sqm. 73% jobs were produced without primer.
Koenig & Bauer Durst supports operations such as Schumacher with comprehensive prepress training (profiling, ink saving, embellishment), operator training (press efficiency, quality, maintenance), sales training (application training, product offerings), business knowledge transfer and a proven technology with most automated, productive, single pass water-based presses suitable for food packaging.
Koenig & Bauer Durst also delivers responsive service and customer care with remote diagnostics and telephone service as well as software and workflow support to ensure highest level of uptime.
Talk to Koenig & Bauer Durst or its partners discover more about how to introduce these business benefits, and more, by transitioning to digital production.
Make sure our next SPC Open House in Lienz on 27-28 September is in your diary!
By Matthias Krautgasser, Senior Product Manager, Koenig & Bauer Durst
That is one of the main takeaways from a white paper by Markus Witthaut, a senior scientist at Fraunhofer IML, Europe’s largest research organization covering all areas on logistics.
He said the benefits of digital printing are already there and will just become more and more relevant. He added: “Don’t wait. Go for digital printing now.”
The white paper on the complete supply chain management and logistics was created on behalf of Koenig & Bauer Durst.
It clearly showed digitization that comes with digital printing delivers benefits for converters and brand owners. Processes can be made faster by the quick exchange of information about new packaging designs, new print, as well as the status of the production order.
This approach delivers three major advantages for brand owners – the lead time is considerably quicker, design changes can be made rapidly and there is a greatly reduced risk of obsolescence.
These advantages can be very quickly introduced and capitalized on with the right software tools.
Efficient production with optimal results in the shortest possible time is delivered by the browser-based Durst Software Solutions. Durst Workflow combines data preparation, colour management and output preparation and allows multiple users with customizable permissions to work in parallel on the same database.
Production results are made more transparent by Durst Analytics. It gives users an at a glance overview of their printing systems via a web browser or an automatically generated email report. They can monitor production data such as material, ink consumption and productivity.
The complete processing of print orders and the sale of products and services is managed by the online Durst Smart Shop. The all-in-one solution digitizes and automates the sales and marketing process from the first customer contact up to the transfer of a print ready file to the production floor.
Individually or collectively these solutions can enable digital production to be responsively scaled up to meet demand.
They can also help generate increased profitability through the provision of the most highly automated and productive single-pass digital printing solutions on the market.
To discover more about how converters and brand owners can enjoy the benefits of digital print read the full white paper here: Supply-chain-improvements-with-digital-printing.pdf
By Dr Stefan Kappaun, Executive Vice President of Inks and Fluids, Durst Group
Inks safety, security and standards – our market offering
With regulations in food packaging continuing to tighten, we believe the cost and ability to comply with the future regulatory curve will be easier to achieve with water-based inks.
We also believe that the ever-changing regulatory environment means it is essential to eliminate as many process steps with third-party fluids as possible.
The design of our SPC inks means corrugated converters can print without using a priming fluid, if they chose, and there is no need for an additional overprint varnish fluid and process step.
We have achieved this through adding a sealing step in the water-based ink to give abrasion resistance, gloss effect and anti-slip characteristics.
Our initiatives have had the added environmental impact of being able to reduce paper consumption. The ink enables a ‘non-touch’ printing process with no analogue primer or OVP (Over Print Varnish) resulting in potential topliner savings of up to 20%. This design results in fewer humectants (substances that attract and retain moisture) and vaporable compounds compared to other water-based ink systems.
Another process that will become a bigger issue in the future is deinking – the removal of printing ink from the recovered paper during the paper recycling process. We, in tandem with the industry, will continue to work tirelessly to push the regulatory framework on this important topic.
Our food-safe, water-based inks currently conform to all regulatory standards – such as Swiss Ordinance List, Nestlé and Good Manufacturing Practice – and have achieved the UL ECOLOGO® Certification recognized as a gold standard for sustainability credentials. In general, external certifications are used by us to ensure compliance with even the most robust regulations for food safety, security and sustainability. We are convinced that our water-based inks will be more likely to comply in the future as regulations further tighten.
Meeting the regulatory framework for food safety, security and sustainability is enabled by including a cross-linkable water dispersible polymer in our inks that cannot migrate due to its molecular weight. The corresponding organically pigmented, water-based inks have very high-water contents. The speciality resin in combination with the aqueous carrier allows odour-free and robust printing. A sealing step included in the SPC dryer ensures good gloss and scratch resistance without overcoating.
And what about the future? We, as a world leader within food-safe ink research and development, will continue on-going testing for migration in extreme conditions to prove safety.
Whereas it is the responsibility of converters to test and ensure that they comply with industry standards, we will continue to offer expert advice and support them with testing.
By Robert Stabler, Managing Director, Koenig & Bauer Durst
Ink safety, security and standards – why they are so important!
On such an important topic as ink safety, security and recyclability, it is essential that all industry stakeholders – including our direct competitors – use facts and proof-points as the basis for their value proposition.
Sometimes this has not been the case. We know from first-hand experience that misinformation has been spread in the market, including about our own products and inks.
This can undermine confidence and the proactive work already undertaken by so many industry bodies, some of which we work with closely.
The reality is that inks have the potential to create ingredients and biocides that at certain levels of human consumption could be dangerous to health.
Regulatory standards are based on the latest scientific knowledge to define what is safe and what is not from a formulation perspective or how the ink behaves and migrates over its lifetime.
Rules are going to get tighter in the markets we serve – folding carton and corrugated. Without question, we know that converters need surety and confidence that their vendors are ahead of the regulatory change curve.
Our philosophy in developing our whole SPC digital printing system is to ensure that we can support converters to comply with the ever-changing regulatory environment by eliminating as many process steps with third party fluids as possible.
The design of the ink means converters can produce without using a priming fluid, if they chose, and there is no need for an additional overprint varnish fluid and process step. Our scientists have achieved this through adding a sealing step in the water-based ink to give abrasion resistance, gloss effect and anti-slip characteristics.
The ink is designed with a water-based polymer that is cross-linked and cannot migrate due to its molecular weight. As a result, converters are assured of being able to comply with all standards on ink formulation such Swiss Ordinance List and Nestlé standard and can comply to all major regulations related to migration for primary food packaging.
In the future, we are convinced that they will still comply as regulations tighten.
We – Koenig & Bauer Durst – will remain at the forefront of developments in technology and ensure that the highest standards are met.
In the coming months, in a proactive approach we will be sharing our global expertise – backed by two giants of packaging and printing – across the industry.
Let’s all work together. We can make a difference. Digital has a huge role to play for folding carton and corrugated board markets in the future.
By Matthias Krautgasser, Senior Product Manager, Koenig & Bauer Durst
We are proud to announce the launch of 1,000 dpi printing on our Delta SPC 130 platform as part of our continuous quality enhancements to help customers.
With the resulting further improvements of fine details and text sharpness – most noticeable in smaller fonts – we believe this is a significant step forward for the corrugated packaging markets in which we serve through our Delta SPC technology.
For customers there are huge benefits with a multitude of new applications opening up for converters, not least the fact that printing at 1,000 dpi provides optimization to litho quality requirements.
Although this development has been designed for our new Koenig & Bauers Durst Delta SPC 130 Eco + model, it will be available for all existing presses as an upgradeable software option.
From the results we have already seen, this is hugely important for our customers. The big plus is that it enables them to free up work on their offset presses by transferring even more jobs to digital production in corrugated markets.
It’s another reason why converters must think digital in today’s marketplace.
Contact me on matthias.krautgasser@koenig-bauer-durst.com to find out more.
Koenig & Bauer Durst GmbH
Friedrich-Koenig-Str. 4
97080 Würzburg
Germany
Phone: +49 931 909 6709
Email: info@koenig-bauer-durst.com
Koenig & Bauer Durst GmbH
Friedrich-Koenig-Str. 4
97080 Würzburg
Germany
Phone: +49 931 909 6709
Email: info@koenig-bauer-durst.com
