From testing to trusting: the digital age in corrugated

By Daniel Velema, Managing Director, Koenig & Bauer Durst GmbH

Is the corrugated packaging sector ready to move beyond short-run prototyping into full industrial-scale digital production? The answer is a resounding ‘Yes!’.

The industry is at a tipping point. Digital is no longer confined to sampling or niche applications – it is now a core, complementary production technology to offset and flexo and helps to improve overall production efficiency in the print shop. This is no longer experimentation. Converters have moved from testing to trusting.

Yet perception still lags behind reality.

Some in the market continue to view digital as ‘fancy technology’ rather than a proven manufacturing solution. The truth is that many converters have already made the shift and they are seeing tangible business value as a result.

Major players such as Smurfit Westrock, Pratt Industries, and Mondi Group are investing at scale as a strategic growth lever.

The remaining barriers are less about technology – like our single pass, water-based Delta SPC130 – and more about transformation.

Organizations must adapt workflows, estimating models, and production planning, to fully unlock digital’s potential as a complementary production technology.

Digital printing is one piece of a broader manufacturing evolution, requiring closer collaboration across partners and systems. It is only solving a part of the puzzle, that is why working together with other suppliers during a project is in our natural DNA.

It is also still new for certain companies. I see that this often results in a more complex, longer decision-making process.

However, our customers are proving day in day out that there is a clear business case. It is no longer a question of ‘if’, but ‘how fast’.

Those who align their operations and mindset today will define how their competitive landscape looks tomorrow.