John Penhallow10.13.15
Readers of this column may remember that KBA, probably still Europe’s second biggest printing press manufacturer, has just entered the narrow web business. Through its subsidiary KBA Meprint, the company launched a new machine at Labelexpo 2015. Readers will also be aware that Europe is in the grip of the biggest refugee crisis since the years following the second World War. This has led KBA’s management to offer apprenticeships to several asylum seekers, who will work and study for 3½ years to get their mechanical engineering diploma. Ralf Sammeck, a member of KBA’s group management and managing director of KBA-Sheetfed Solutions, explains, “For our globally active company, it is a duty in this situation to send a signal for a better hospitality culture.” A drop in the ocean, admittedly, and so far few European companies have followed this lead, even ones in Germany where unemployment is low and skilled workers are much in demand. However, as public opinion in many European countries becomes more favorable to taking in refugees, we can hope more companies will realize that by hiring more asylum seekers, they can do good by doing themselves good.
No booze, no flirts, no profits
The transport, storage and logistics sector is a big user of labels, but that is not the main reason why France is still discussing the sale for $3 billion of the Norbert Dentressangle Group to US-based XPO Logistics (which just spent another $3 billion buying Con-Way). Having allegedly promised, back in April, to leave the existing Dentressangle management in place, XPO has now removed the long-standing CEO and replaced him, horror of horrors, by an American. And what is more, an American “qui ne parle pas le français.” The 45,000 employees of the French company are said to be “disquieted” by this appointment (and probably with good reason), but there have been a number of incidents in recent years of insensitive handling, by British or American head offices, of recently acquired companies in continental Europe. Remember the first boss of Disneyland Paris, who wanted to ban the sale of alcohol in all the park’s restaurants? That Prohibition order didn’t last long (the boss didn’t last much longer).
Then there was Walmart, which spent ten years trying to gain a foothold in Germany. The company gave the job of masterminding Walmart Germany to an American who didn’t speak a word of German (sound familiar?). To cap it all, Walmart apparently banned flirting in the workplace. The press got hold of that and had a field day. And what about UK retailer Marks & Spencer, who decided to close down its operations in France and simply sent all its employees an email saying you’re fired? The company should have known it was not just flouting French law (as a court quickly told it), but challenging a continental way of thought that goes far beyond France (or Belgium, where similar court actions were started) and dates from long before De Gaulle invented the mildly abusive and inaccurate term “Les Anglo-Saxons” to describe the English-speaking world. Many things have changed in Europe since Mark Twain was an Innocent Abroad, but globalization hasn’t ironed out the old differences.
Back to Brussels
All of which takes us rather far from the world of labels, dominated as it has been by the Labelexpo show in Brussels. This year’s show will be remembered for many things, but perhaps mostly for the word Hybrid, which (along with “LED” and “Digital”) was the buzzword for 2015. It has been said that any fool can make a hybrid label press, and that some who were not fools have tried and failed. An inkjet unit plonked down in the middle of a flexo press is likely to combine the worst features of both technologies, and hybrid label presses have a long history of commercial failure. Is there any reason to think that this year’s crop of hybrids will fare any better? Well, maybe. For a start, all the major press makers seem to have jumped on the bandwagon – but maybe this is just the “lemming effect.”
Gallus first presented its DCS 340 hybrid in October 2014 but did not launch it officially until this month. Could this long gestation hide problems, or does it just show the Swiss passion for perfection? Nilpeter, too, with its history of very partial success in hybrids must be confident that this time, with its “Panorama,” it has a winner. And what about Omet, Focus Label and the others all showing hybrid presses? The answer could lie not in the nuts and bolts of the equipment but in the workflow. According to Andy Cook, CEO of FFEI, welding the metalwork is child’s play compared with welding together prepress software packages, which can handle both digital and flexo. He reckons his company has cracked it, and together with flexo press specialist Edale, they took the “Graphium Hybrid” to Brussels for the show. Gallus has gone its own way and is using a variant of Heidelberg’s Prinect workflow, the first time this has been adapted to a narrow web press.
The battle to develop a successful hybrid label press will be won when a press can run labels digitally and conventionally such that you can’t see which is which, even after exposing them to sun, wind and all the rest for several months.
The Empire strikes back
Like primitive mammals eating dinosaurs’ eggs, label converters have been nibbling away at the flexible packaging and folding box markets, hoping to knock mid- and wide-web converters off their evolutionary perch. There had to be a backlash. There was. At Labelexpo, Italian machinery manufacturer Uteco was among the leading lashers. Its latest CI flexo press ONYX XS comes in 25" and 42" web widths and runs at up to 1,000 fpm, with all the latest gizmos to achieve fast job change and minimize waste. Soma, from the Czech Republic, also brought a CI package print press to the show. Goss International extolled the same short-run virtues for its offset presses. And while we’re about it, Goss also makes a hybrid web offset/inkjet press.
Fachpack
This major packaging show in Nuremberg brought together three times as many exhibitors as Labelexpo, but since the two shows coincide exactly, few label specialists chose to exhibit at the German show. Exceptions were paper producers Mondi and Sappi, who managed to straddle both shows, as did press manufacturers Domino and Epson, and software supremo Esko. The major European labeling equipment manufacturers – Herma, Logopak, Bizerba and a dozen others all exhibited. The thirty or more label converters exhibiting at Fachpack were mainly German, and used the show to demonstrate the range of On-Product Promotion labels (OPP), where the combination of label and detachable mini brochure provides information. For your correspondent, the most way-out idea from Faubel is the “Buy a crate of beer and grow your own grass” label. Before you think this is promoting soft drugs, it must be said that this peel-and-reveal beer label just contains a sprinkling of real lawn seed, which beer-swilling football fans can choose to plant in their garden or on their windowsill. “Our printing products are customizable, but not interchangeable,” explains Faubel’s CEO Frank Hunter. “For example, seeds, consumer identification and response elements can be tailored to enhance each individual campaign.”
Pronounced Brand Loyalty?
That XPO Logistics (see above) is now repainting the Dentressangle trucks in its own colors. This raises questions like how long before the Gallus brand is swallowed up into Heidelberg? What about Gidue? The Italian press manufacturer (the name just means “the two Gs”) was founded by one of the present owners’ parents whose first names both began with a G. What the founders didn’t foresee was that non-Italians can never agree on how to pronounce it. In France, it’s pronounced Zhidou (with a Zh as in Dr. Zhivago), but in England they make it rhyme with skidoo. Now that the firm has been acquired and the name changed, that problem will cease to exist. Everyone knows how to pronounce Bobst.
No booze, no flirts, no profits
The transport, storage and logistics sector is a big user of labels, but that is not the main reason why France is still discussing the sale for $3 billion of the Norbert Dentressangle Group to US-based XPO Logistics (which just spent another $3 billion buying Con-Way). Having allegedly promised, back in April, to leave the existing Dentressangle management in place, XPO has now removed the long-standing CEO and replaced him, horror of horrors, by an American. And what is more, an American “qui ne parle pas le français.” The 45,000 employees of the French company are said to be “disquieted” by this appointment (and probably with good reason), but there have been a number of incidents in recent years of insensitive handling, by British or American head offices, of recently acquired companies in continental Europe. Remember the first boss of Disneyland Paris, who wanted to ban the sale of alcohol in all the park’s restaurants? That Prohibition order didn’t last long (the boss didn’t last much longer).
Then there was Walmart, which spent ten years trying to gain a foothold in Germany. The company gave the job of masterminding Walmart Germany to an American who didn’t speak a word of German (sound familiar?). To cap it all, Walmart apparently banned flirting in the workplace. The press got hold of that and had a field day. And what about UK retailer Marks & Spencer, who decided to close down its operations in France and simply sent all its employees an email saying you’re fired? The company should have known it was not just flouting French law (as a court quickly told it), but challenging a continental way of thought that goes far beyond France (or Belgium, where similar court actions were started) and dates from long before De Gaulle invented the mildly abusive and inaccurate term “Les Anglo-Saxons” to describe the English-speaking world. Many things have changed in Europe since Mark Twain was an Innocent Abroad, but globalization hasn’t ironed out the old differences.
Back to Brussels
All of which takes us rather far from the world of labels, dominated as it has been by the Labelexpo show in Brussels. This year’s show will be remembered for many things, but perhaps mostly for the word Hybrid, which (along with “LED” and “Digital”) was the buzzword for 2015. It has been said that any fool can make a hybrid label press, and that some who were not fools have tried and failed. An inkjet unit plonked down in the middle of a flexo press is likely to combine the worst features of both technologies, and hybrid label presses have a long history of commercial failure. Is there any reason to think that this year’s crop of hybrids will fare any better? Well, maybe. For a start, all the major press makers seem to have jumped on the bandwagon – but maybe this is just the “lemming effect.”
Gallus first presented its DCS 340 hybrid in October 2014 but did not launch it officially until this month. Could this long gestation hide problems, or does it just show the Swiss passion for perfection? Nilpeter, too, with its history of very partial success in hybrids must be confident that this time, with its “Panorama,” it has a winner. And what about Omet, Focus Label and the others all showing hybrid presses? The answer could lie not in the nuts and bolts of the equipment but in the workflow. According to Andy Cook, CEO of FFEI, welding the metalwork is child’s play compared with welding together prepress software packages, which can handle both digital and flexo. He reckons his company has cracked it, and together with flexo press specialist Edale, they took the “Graphium Hybrid” to Brussels for the show. Gallus has gone its own way and is using a variant of Heidelberg’s Prinect workflow, the first time this has been adapted to a narrow web press.
The battle to develop a successful hybrid label press will be won when a press can run labels digitally and conventionally such that you can’t see which is which, even after exposing them to sun, wind and all the rest for several months.
The Empire strikes back
Like primitive mammals eating dinosaurs’ eggs, label converters have been nibbling away at the flexible packaging and folding box markets, hoping to knock mid- and wide-web converters off their evolutionary perch. There had to be a backlash. There was. At Labelexpo, Italian machinery manufacturer Uteco was among the leading lashers. Its latest CI flexo press ONYX XS comes in 25" and 42" web widths and runs at up to 1,000 fpm, with all the latest gizmos to achieve fast job change and minimize waste. Soma, from the Czech Republic, also brought a CI package print press to the show. Goss International extolled the same short-run virtues for its offset presses. And while we’re about it, Goss also makes a hybrid web offset/inkjet press.
Fachpack
This major packaging show in Nuremberg brought together three times as many exhibitors as Labelexpo, but since the two shows coincide exactly, few label specialists chose to exhibit at the German show. Exceptions were paper producers Mondi and Sappi, who managed to straddle both shows, as did press manufacturers Domino and Epson, and software supremo Esko. The major European labeling equipment manufacturers – Herma, Logopak, Bizerba and a dozen others all exhibited. The thirty or more label converters exhibiting at Fachpack were mainly German, and used the show to demonstrate the range of On-Product Promotion labels (OPP), where the combination of label and detachable mini brochure provides information. For your correspondent, the most way-out idea from Faubel is the “Buy a crate of beer and grow your own grass” label. Before you think this is promoting soft drugs, it must be said that this peel-and-reveal beer label just contains a sprinkling of real lawn seed, which beer-swilling football fans can choose to plant in their garden or on their windowsill. “Our printing products are customizable, but not interchangeable,” explains Faubel’s CEO Frank Hunter. “For example, seeds, consumer identification and response elements can be tailored to enhance each individual campaign.”
Pronounced Brand Loyalty?
That XPO Logistics (see above) is now repainting the Dentressangle trucks in its own colors. This raises questions like how long before the Gallus brand is swallowed up into Heidelberg? What about Gidue? The Italian press manufacturer (the name just means “the two Gs”) was founded by one of the present owners’ parents whose first names both began with a G. What the founders didn’t foresee was that non-Italians can never agree on how to pronounce it. In France, it’s pronounced Zhidou (with a Zh as in Dr. Zhivago), but in England they make it rhyme with skidoo. Now that the firm has been acquired and the name changed, that problem will cease to exist. Everyone knows how to pronounce Bobst.