HP had all of Hall 17, and its label and narrow web offerings included the new HP Indigo 8000, as well as a combination press.
“drupa has been great,” said Avi Basu, director, market and business development, Graphic Solutions Business, Americas for HP. “We have a lot to show and there is a lot of traffic. The HP Indigo 6800 is our flagship, and our HP Indigo 8000 is new here, as well as our inline combination system, which utilizes the 6800 and adds embellishments such as foils and textiles.
“We are getting a lot of interest in both these machines,” Basu added. “Digital printing of labels and flexible packaging is no longer debatable. Now it is a matter of increasing speed and production. With the HP Indigo 8000, we have a lot of orders shipping late this year. It increases speed and throughput, which is almost double the 6800. Meanwhile, the new combination press is an optional unit that opens up new markets for our customers.”
Yael Barak, future platforms and technology, strategy and business management, Indigo Division at HP, noted that the HP Indigo 8000 offers excellent productivity, doubling it to 80 m/m (262 fpm) in full color with instant SKU changeovers.
“People see the productivity plus the advantages of digital,” Barak noted. “We showed the HP Indigo 8000 for the first time in March, and will begin installing them in a few weeks. We are now focusing on the ramp-up. The combination press is specifically designed to match the HP Indigo 6800’s speed and flexibility. It includes UV inkjet white for wine and spirit and cosmetic applications, as well as foil and tactile inks. It should be available in late 2017. This will level the ground for smaller printers because of its ease of use, ability to streamline the process and add more capabilities. We are also planning on adding diecutting in the future. It is a similar concept to our inline priming unit.”
Landa reporteded more than €450 million in orders for its Nanographic Printing presses.
“drupa 2016 will be remembered as the inflection point in the industry’s transition from mechanical printing to digital. In the past, digital printing vendors had to try to convince the market that digital is the way to go,” said Landa chairman Benny Landa. “Now, for the first time, the situation has reversed. There is a very strong ‘pull’ from the market, driven by both customers and brand-owners, who are now demanding digital printing. This is real. This is now. For Landa Digital Printing, this market awakening has been particularly rewarding, as reflected in the substantial number of orders which we took at drupa.”
“Everyone is leaving drupa with the understanding that Nanography is a game changer,” added Landa CEO Yishai Amir. “In short, we had an amazing drupa.”
Landa also discussed his company’s new ink technology. “We have a very strong patent base for our inks and machines,” Landa said. “We are building our pigment factory in Israel, which will also be used in other industries, including automotive. We supply inks to Komori. We give the inks for free through our pay-for-use program. We are talking about staggering amounts. We are shipping concentrates that will be diluted by the customer’s tap water, and the pages are completely deinkable.”
EFI CEO Guy Gecht discussed the company’s new Nozomi single-pass corrugated press and the EFI AquaEndure water-based inkjet inks for packaging. “The printing platform is on fire,” Gecht said. “Publication and home printing have declined, while the most promising area is digital. You have to jump to a new platform. The choice is either to crash and burn or jump to the right platform.”
“With Nozomi, corrugated can be personalized, with packages delivered to your door in custom-printed boxes,” Gecht added. “We combined our Cretaprint, Jetrion and VUTEk technologies to form the Nozomi platform. We print LED inks directly on the board. The EFI Nozomi C18000 will produce 8,100 square meters an hour. It is 1.8 meters wide. We are also developing a partnership with Esko, in which Esko’s workflow will be seamlessly integrated with our Fiery digital front end. Our best days are ahead of us. It is going to be a great journey.”
“Everyone has figured out that the combination of water-based inks and UV is a holy grail, but the ability to print it is key. This will really help our inkjet platform become more successful,” Gecht said. He added that AquaEndure will be ready in 2017.
“With the AquaEndure inks, there are a lot of benefits with an aqueous UV ink, in which water is the carrier,” Stephen Emery, VP, Ink Business, Jetrion and Rialco for EFI, added. “The biggest challenge is eliminating the water. We are very optimistic about our ability to parlay this platform to our other technologies.”
“UV inks are certainly growing,” Emery said. “Five years ago, we moved to LED, and now almost 100% of our printers are UV LED. We entered into the ceramic market a few years ago, and now it is 65% digital. What we learned from producing ceramic inks is efficiencies and lean practices. Now we’ve entered textiles and are producing our own reactive ink. It’s a very high growth area.”
OMET srl had three machines on display at drupa. The Varyflex V2 Offset 850 and iFlex printers were highlighted at the company’s booth, while the XFlex X6 Nano-Metallography unit was shown at the Landa Nano stand.
Massimo Bellingardi, marketing coordinator for OMET Srl, reported that drupa 2016 was a major success for OMET, with more than 2,000 contacts registered in the first few days of the show and seven contracts already signed for the purchase of OMET printing machines, including some new Varyflex V2 Offset printers.
“We see drupa as an exhibition for everyone. The inviting OMET stand saw a continuous flow of visitors mainly attracted by the big new entry to the show: the Varyflex V2 Offset 850,” Bellingardi said. “This new printing press presented by OMET was on demonstration three times a day, attracting a great deal of interest among spectators every time during work changeover and the passage from one subject to another in less than five minutes.”
The Varyflex V2 Offset 850 is designed for packaging and is the ideal solution for the production of small and medium print runs.
“This OMET press allows you to print on all types of support: from thin, 8 micron film to paper to 450 micron card,” added Bellingardi. “Among the features that most amazed the visitors to the OMET stand, the best is definitely the latest generation, food-compliance ebeam drying system which allows you to print at a speed of 400 meters a minute.”
The iFLEX flexo label printing machine offers iVision control and is the first laser application for a narrow-belt printing press (iLight).
“iFlex has demonstrated to the world just how easy and fast it can be to change subject and die board, with minimum waste and immediate perfect print register,” Bellingardi noted.
In Pavilion 9, OMET had its XFlex X6 on display on the futuristic Landa stand.
“Indeed, OMET has worked in collaboration with Landa for the development of the new Nano-Metallography unit presented in preview at drupa, attracting a great deal of interest on the part of the whole printing industry,” concluded Bellingardi.
Todd Blumsack, VP, Business Unit Web Fed at Bobst North America Inc., noted that Bobst’s acquisition of Gidue added new flexo solutions to Bobst’s narrow web portfolio, and Bobst is introducing more products to the market.
“At the end of last year, Bobst acquired Gidue, adding their narrow web flexo solutions to our portfolio,” said Blumsack. “Our new M6 is designed for folding carton and flexible packaging. The CL750D narrow web coder was launched here this year. The MW85F is our new CI press designed for narrow web. It is designed for short runs, and offers Smart GPS, which is patented by Bobst and helps with quick turnarounds. It is now adapted to the MW85F. The RS 6002 and RZS 6003 are two gravure stations with drive-in ink rollers.
“The reaction has been incredible for the M6 in North America, with an amazing number of machines sold before and during the show,” Blumsack added. “The CL750D and MW85F have gone over exceptionally well. With Digital Flexo and Revo, we are exceptionally well positioned for the label and narrow web market.”
Durst highlighted its Tau 330E cost-effectiove UV inkjet label press during drupa.
“The Tau 330E is an introductory-level machine,” said Richard Thomas, business development manager, Durst Americas. “It is designed for providing better laydown of ink and higher color strength, and allows our customers to be very fierce competitors in the market. It cuts ink costs by 25%. It offers reliability and efficiency and gives our customers the ability to aggressively compete. We had a lot of our label customers stop by.”
Jef Stoffels, director, corporate marketing for Esko, noted that Danaher, Esko’s parent company, brought together all of its operating companies, including Esko, Enfocus, X-Rite, Pantone and Media Beacon, to drupa 2016. The company had a wide variety of new product to show, including its ArtPro+ PDF editor for packaging and Equinox system for converting spot colors to CMYK as well as expanded gamut printing.
“We are the market leader in artwork and workflow for packaging and labels,” Stoffels noted. “Packaging for nine out of 10 major brands is produced by Esko customers. We listen to customers and what they need. If you can improve uptime on a flexo press, it delivers more value. We re-engineered ArtPro from the bottom up, including changing the interface to a click wheel, while Equinox cannot be highlighted enough.”
Domino Printing Systems showed its new K630i digital book press as well as its K610I seven-color inkjet digital label press during drupa.
“Our K600I can run water-based or UV, and is integrated into Mark Andy and other presses. The K610I has two white print bars, and our opacity is second to none,” said David Ellen, president, Digital Printing Solutions, North America for Domino Printing Systems. In addition to white, it prints six colors, including orange and purple. We are emphasizing ease of use. It has Kyocera printheads and a GEW UV system, and the printheads move over the paper then go back to get wiped for automatic cleaning. It runs at 165 fpm with all colors and 246 fpm if you don’t run white. The K630i book press is a full variable press that runs at 3,000 pages per minute.”
At drupa, GEW launched the new multi-point inline UV monitor, which was fitted to a NUVA2 UV lamphead at its display. The UV monitor consists of a calibrated sensor that continuously reads and records the UV intensity in a UV curing system. There is also a compressed air purge at the tip of the sensor to prevent dirt and dust ingress.
“This is vital to avoid the risks and consequences of undercured product reaching the customer,” said Martin Kugler, corporate communications for GEW (EC) Limited. “Media printed with UV inks and intended for use in food packaging have to be guaranteed 100% cured.
“GEW’s UV monitor is a highly reliable and cost effective solution for continuous production monitoring of UV intensity and dose at multiple positions across the web, thus eliminating the possibility of inadequate UV dose,” Kugler added.
Kugler reported that drupa once again clearly demonstrated its significance as the major trade show for the printing industry.
“Visitor numbers to our booth far surpassed what we had expected with our experience of previous drupa shows,” Kugler said. “We had more relevant visitors and I found the show to be vibrant, with people showing a lot of interest and curiosity for the technical innovations such as our LED systems and the UV monitor.”
Isabel Ferreira, marketing, Sistrade, noted that the company showed its software solutions at drupa.
“We are software experts,” said Ferreira. “With our MIS/ERP systems, people can control the data and see what is really happening. This is the fourth time we have been exhibiting at drupa. This year is already going very well.”
“We are showing the depth and versatility and our expertise in all areas of web transport, automatic splicing and rewinding and tension control here at drupa,” said Gavin Rittmeyer, VP sales and marketing for Martin Automatic.
Katie Shingel, VP Eastern Europe sales for ETI Converting Equipment, said the company’s new Pellicut diecutting station was a highlight.
“We demonstrated the Pellicut diecutting station, which is able to diecut on very thin recyclable liner,” said Shingel. “This allows for more labels per roll so there are fewer roll changes and less transportation. It is very interesting. We have seen particularly good interest in the US and Europe. We have presentations every hour and they are successful.”
On the ink side, Rick Clendenning, president and CEO at INX International Ink Co., said that this year’s booth focused on the capabilities of the entire company, including parent company Sakata INX and INX Digital.
“It is a Sakata INX booth with our whole company represented,” Clendenning said. “The big benefit at drupa is that you can show off your global technologies and global footprint. You really get to see a lot of different people, whether they are customers, our distributors, and technical personnel.
“We are showing new machines, as well as new low migration technology for offset and UV flexo,” Clendenning added. “We have added UV/EB offset manufacturing in Spain and UV flexo production in France and the UK. Label and narrow web is one of our largest growth markets, and we are also adding onto our digital footprint. It is a very important market for us. We are heavily involved in labels and shrink films.”
Flint Group had a wide range of inks and services at drupa 2016. “Sheetfed LED is a most exciting development for us,” said Michael Kellen, VP sales/sheetfed, North America. “LED continues to grow in inks and coatings, and it is a transformational opportunity for printers. We have developed our XCURA inks for LED. LED is coming more critical for the future of commercial and packaging printers. Our LED coatings are another frontier, and it is a market that is developing very quickly.”
Deanna Klemesrud, global marketing director - Brand & Promo, Flint Group Packaging & Narrow Web, discussed the new XtraMile global packaging program and Vivo Colour Solutions launched at drupa 2016.
“XtraMile is our services solution program for our customers who want to increase their bottom line through increased productivity, reduced waste, training and environmental concerns,” said Klemesrud. “Our teams do a pressroom audit, including prepress. It is a real partnership with our customers, who can make these improvements that will benefit their bottom line. Vivo Colour Solutions is our new color management system.”
“With Vivo, Flint Group customers have a search engine for colors,” added Thomas Schmidt, regional sales director Paper & Board Packaging Inks, Central Europe for Flint Group Germany GmbH. “We take color seriously, and the response for Vivo has been great. Brand owners demand consistency, which is a challenge that converters face. They enter color values, and within the cloud, there are thousands of colors and shades available. Vivo allows the converter to download ink recipes, product data sheets and more. There is also DigiSwatch, where, if the color recipe isn’t already available, we will match the shade and send the recipe. It is designed for flexo, offset and gravure, along with substrate and application variables.”
Matthieu Carni, business development manager at Siegwerk, talked about Siegwerk’s entry into the world of digital inks for the label and narropw web market with its SicuraJet series of inks.
“Siegwerk is entering the digital market, beginning with UV inkjet for narrow web and labels and directly on packaging,” Carli reported. “We have been working on inkjet inks for three years, and we are already commercial. It is a fragmented market, but it will grow. We have partnerships with some OEMs, and we have a lab and pilot production unit in France near our UV and energy curing lab. We can formulate our ink, test it and run it on a production line.”
Hamid Shirazi, global technical promotions manager, FUJIFILM Imaging Colorants, noted many of the company’s ink offerings, which were showcased at FUJIFILM’s stand.
“We have been making inks since the 1980s. We make UV, water-based, aqueous UV and textile inks, thermoformable inks, artificial leather, edible inks, metallic inks and invisible inks. We leverage technologies from different parts of our business,” said Shirazi.
Phoseon Technology showed its new FireJet 200 at drupa. “We have come up with ways to make the fan quieter and added more speed and new circuitry that will compensate for degradation,” said Michael Beck, director of sales, Americas for Phoseon. “Testing is already at more than 50,000 hours. We are in the majority of digital LED printers here at drupa, and all of our key partners are here. LED certainly has a lot of buzz.”
The Gallus Labelfire 340, previously the Gallus DCS 340, was a highlight at drupa.
“The strengths of Heidelberg, FUJIFILM and Gallus make our new Gallus Labelfire 340 work,” said Michael Ring, VP, Digital Solutions at Gallus Inc. “These three companies working together enable us to bring quality not seen before. The Labelfire 340 sets a new standard for what digital label printing is meant to be. You can go from file to finished label all inline. We have a great relationship with FUJIFILM. We are using FUJIFILM’s Samba printheads combined with Heidelberg’s digital knowledge, workflow and color management.
“Labelfire is right on track,” Ring added. “We have had two field tests, and are installing five presses in Europe now, as well as presses in the US in October and Australia in February. From there, we will go South America and Asia markets.”
Ring said that he has seen a lot of changes at drupa over the years.
“drupa is definitely turning into a digital show,” Ring added. “It has gone from commercial printing to inkjet drupa, and now digital and packaging drupa. There are a lot of commercial printers who are now looking to go into labels and packaging. That is a major change.”
Filip Weymans, director segment marketing Labels & Packaging at Xeikon, noted that the combination of Xeikon and Flint Group is provoing to be powerful.
“Many printers want broader diversification in the market, and we bring a new offering to Flint Group’s customers,” Weymans said. “Digital is now a mainstream technology in self-adhesive labels, where Flint Group Narrow Web is number one in the market. We do document printing, labels and packaging and folding cartons.”
Among the highlights for Xeikon was its new Fusion technology. “Fusion is a new technology for our toolbox. If you think about the world of digital, there is a need for one platform that offers all embellishments, which is what our Fusion technology offers,” Weymans added. “ We did a technology demonstration and we already announced our first pilot site. We have our workflow, color and software tools. Xeikon is creating a solution for the broader segment of the label market.”
Advanced Vision Technology Ltd. (AVT) displayed its latest solutions for packaging, labels, and commercial printing during drupa 2016.
“We are highlighting a lot at drupa,” said Amir Sheinman, VP of marketing for AVT. We have four key messages here. First is where we come from. We are leaders in web, wide web and folding carton auto inspection as well as sheetfed and corrugated. We are expanding our offerings in the classic inspection fields we are in, as well as new solutions in narrow web.
“Our second message is that we are the absolute leaders in digital press control and inspection,” Sheinman added. “Jet IQ is in our partners’ systems, from every Landa press to presses by Gallus, and EFI, among others. Our third message is that we have been partners with HP for 11 years. The Apollo 30K is integrated into the HP 3000 folding carton sheetfed press, and the Apollo 20K is in the HP 20000 flexible printing press. Our alliance with HP is strong. Our fourth message is our color management solutions, including our SpectraLab II automatic spectrophotometer. Color is a big issue for our customers. drupa is the biggest show for us.”
AVT’s new Turbo HD web inspection platform is designed for label and packaging applications.
“The Helios Turbo HD is the best inscreen inspection system today,” said Aviram Vardi, AVT’s marketing manager. “We believe that data is as valuable as inspection itself, and we are showing for the first time our multiple head inspection architecture. We look at what our customers need and tune our products for them. With our workflow and automation solutions, we have eyes on the press. We offer the most variable data about your press.”
Also new is the iCenter Platform, a cloud-based solution for QC automation and production performance data.
“We are launching the iCenter platform, in which the cloud will support customers by building their standards, which can be set globally,” Vardi noted.
Myron Werner, sales and marketing manager, Graphics for Kurz Transfer Prductds L.P., noted that Kurz showed its family of products, including OVD Kinegram, PolyIc, Kurz foils, brand protection and software capabilities.
“We’ve created a track and trace platform with brand protection and software, which can scan security holograms,” Werner said. “We are now working with three major consumer packaging goods companies. PolyIC has some platforms that could go a lot of different ways.”
Among the highlights at the Kurz booth were the Bobst MasterFoil stamping press and the new Digital Metal (DM) Liner UV inkjet transfer unit.
“The Bobst MasterFoil can stamp virtually any foil stamping technique, including embossing, debossing and Spatial FX,” Werner said. “We have flat stamping, lens effects and shell effects among others. Spatial FX is embedded in foil, and is flat stamped. Our new DM Liner UV inkjet transfer unit now can take a totally printed sheet and add inkjet cold foiling, with the UV curing heating up the jetted adhesive, making it a two-step process.
“We had our biggest day early in the show this year,” Werner added. “It is difficult to walk through our booth because of all the attendees here. We are guiding the industry forward into the digital age. We have fascinating things that are applicable to today’s digital world.”
About the Author: David Savastano is editor of Ink World magazine, a sister publication of L&NW.