Mantras are chanted to try and retain a follower’s allegiance to a set of beliefs that are at times questionable. Gather a few printers around and the mantras will spring forth immediately; ‘Quality is absolutely paramount, service is key, print runs are getting shorter, it is important to develop a niche market, training is vital, packaging is the only growth sector.’ Agree with any of these? Now let us take a minute or two to examine a couple of them and see how well they stand up to scrutiny. |
| Niche-Domains |
Packaging and niche markets are good places to start for there is a strong link and a measure of substance to the mantras that surround these two. Instinct suggests that manufacturers like Heidelberg and Gallus both of which have directed a major tranche of R & D into developing machines for the packaging sector, believing this sector will gain a greater percentage of the printing pie. They have been right – and wrong at the same time. The percentage of the printing pie taken up by packaging print may have got bigger, but the pie has quite clearly got substantially smaller.
Finding or establishing a niche market or a specialist service may be a little bit like scrambling around in the pie trying to introduce new spices, or ways to make the filling go further for less money; fine if you are successful, but if the idea or service is easy to copy or follow then the niche market finishes up in the gravy.
There is little doubt that packaging print is sufficiently diverse to raise the opportunities for niche services to develop, and manufacturers have marketed their products accordingly, particularly in the narrow width web sector. There are now available some quite remarkable machines; a good example is the Mark Andy XP-5000. Each of its stations can be set up to carry out tasks on a huge range of substrates and may include printing flexo, both water based and UV, offset, hot and cold foiling, Screen and inter-station die-cutting and embossing. Drent with its VSOP has now won an order for a reel fed VSOP press–primarily offset, but with flexo printing capacity and both UV and electron beam curing–and of course, there is the recently launched Gallus RCS series while Nilpeter has been quietly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in narrow and medium web widths and in the process leading the way in what is now an incredibly competitive field.
The machines are there, but the rush to invest in highly specialised, yet flexible and versatile combination presses is scarcely a stampede. For the present at least, there are few printing businesses willing to invest in a press capable of printing in some specified combination of offset, flexo, Screen, gravure and digital. Whatever the reason, whether economic or design related, there doesn’t appear to be much demand for these all singing and dancing machines.
As a result of this apathy opportunities for niche marketing can present themselves. One printer who clearly took a punt with combination presses is Wintek Flexo Print of Bangalore, India. It has several Gallus EM 280 presses, the latest investment, a 10 colour with Screen, hot and cold foil stamping and auto register, was installed in 2008. Gururaj Bullawad a director speaking to PPP Asia, says: “Having inline rotary Screen and hot foil stamping has added an advantage that other printers don’t have, we can do a variety of jobs with special value-added features.”
That of course is the whole point of the investment, but Mr Bullawad crucially when exploiting the opportunities of niche services, was able to think outside the box: “We started offering creative ideas to clients in terms of possibilities in print to make the product more attractive and increase its shelf life or appeal.” He added and this is important: “It is not merely a case of giving what the client wants; you must take the additional step to address their concerns without them having to ask.”
So does that mean that every flexo printer in the UAE should rush out and by a super-dooper combination press? No it doesn’t and a perspective needs to be gained here. India would appear to be a huge market, but it is unlikely that there are any more than about fifty presses there as complex as The 10 colour Gallus EM 280.
This is true of the UK and leading countries in Europe as well. Focus Label Machinery, Nottingham manufacturers with a solid Middle East market produce highly regarded flexo presses, including the WebFlex and ProFlex range. The WebFlex is an excellent example of the developmental trend; a press capable of printing from two to ten colours, using flexo, rotary Screen and rotary cold foil across 13 and 17-inch web widths. David Lee, a director says: “This machine is very much targeted at a niche market and at the moment there doesn’t seem to be any clear trend for a wide take-up of such a press. Our business really is centred around supplying presses such as the ProFlex modular press and the CentraFlex central impression cylinder machines for what I see as our bread and butter market of label printing.”
If there are any trends at all, Mr Lee suggests it is towards digital: “ At the moment the move seems to be adding digital capacity on to a flexo press and in time I suppose it will be more a case of a digital printing system being the centre piece and flexo and other converting capacity being added to it.” One gets the feeling that he doesn’t see any great changes as being imminent, and it would be timely to note that the Agfa Dotrix, a digital printing press with flexo capacity is the only press that is structured in this way. The difficulty for digital at the moment is not so much its print abilities, but making an effective ROI.
Are Mr Lee’s views a reflection of the industry as a whole? In the absence of hard evidence one way or another it is difficult to say, but instinct suggests he is on the right track. On a stroll through Waitrose or Marks & Spencer one would struggle to find many examples of printing that could not have been carried out on most flexo or offset presses that have been around for a number of years. A considerable amount of foiling is in evidence, but much of this is cold, and such a technique can be fairly readily retrofitted. The most noticeable feature is the widespread use of overprint varnishes for effect.
Being realistic, printing is now a commodity business to both printers and print buyers anywhere in the world, yet there is some evidence building up that printers are mounting a fight back to win business on a service basis rather than just on price. Edale, a flexo press manufacturer recognises this. For many years, its staple diet has been presses in the ProFlex and CentraFlex style, and this continues to be an important part of its business, but it is having to face up to change. Although it is extensively involved in the Agfa Dotrix manufacture, this is a small although important part of its future. Bernard Grobb, the export sales manager says: “It is becoming increasingly harder for us to compete with machines manufactured in lower cost countries around the world and in response we have developed a number of value-added options that can be incorporated on to a press.” These include RFID tags, hologram applications, specialist coating units, cold foiling, UV inkjet applications and re sealing systems; the limiting element is imagination rather than technology. Grobb makes a strong case for first building up a market for such type of services. He says: “Without question, offline is the way forward using a traditional press for high-speed reel to reel printing and then transferring them on to the offline converting equipment. When volumes build up, then it can make sense for doing the work inline in one pass.”
This may be the case, but it is far from overwhelming. Sheet-fed offset faces a similar dilemma. Gary Doman, head of sheetfed offset sales for Manroland in the UK probably sees a more realistic future for printing when he says: “A modern sheetfed press can incorporate many value added features including cold foiling, specialist flexo applications via its coating unit, with quality and consistency being monitored inline with systems like Eagle Eye. But few printers use all these facilities all the time.” His view is that there are many printers now chasing niche markets and quite successfully too, but this niche market may only take up 20% of capacity in any one month. “This business is often the icing on the cake,” he says, “and it can contribute margins of up to 40%. Commodity, staple based printing looks after the overheads, but the niche printing delivers the profits.”
Mr Lee holds a similar view. He says: “Many printers are working hard at developing niche markets, some with new ideas, others using applications picked up along the way. A press manufacturer is well placed to help.” Consumable suppliers, too, particularly plate material suppliers are also in a position to have their finger on the pace of change.
Asahi Photoproducts, manufacturers of flexo plate material, fits this bill very well. Paul Chant, its special products co-ordinator thinks change is customer driven, saying: “I believe the package requirement comes first; for example, the customer requires a high quality image in offset with a tactile effect such as brail. Hence, inline embossing or Screen printing is used with high volume ink film thickness to achieve that particular target.”
He does see a well established trend in place: “While it can be a case of horses for courses, combination presses are already used in the label and security printing segment with Nilpeter and Gallus the front runners in that segment. It is possible to exchange the printing units to Screen, offset, flexo, letterpress or embossing units and there is a market demand for a combination press depending on the application. It is not an idea but is already happening.”
