UK-based, Japanese-owned inkjet encoding, marking and label press developer Domino Printing Sciences has announced a new direction, addressing the global USD$223 billion corrugated box market with its new X630i, aqueous inkjet flatbed printer, with which it aims to change plain 'brown boxes' to bright colour printed showpieces.
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| The new Domino X630i Corrugated printer running AQ95 aqueous inks |
Corrugated has been in the news a lot lately, with Screen, Hanway and Xeikon announcing flatbed printing initiatives for this sector of packaging. All use Aqueous, not UV inks and Domino's X630i is also AQ95 aqueous ink-feed with a special polymer enabling quality printing on coated and uncoated corrugated. This also means compliance to the various food safety standards, Nestle, Swiss Ordinance, EuPIA etc. The colour set at release is CMYK with no mention of white ink.
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| Dr Sean Smyth chaired the launch |
The X630i has a maximum print area of 3,000mm x 1,345mm with a throughput rating using 900mm x 1500mm sheets of up to 4,500 per hour. It uses Kyocera printheads at 600dpi maximum and the Digital Front End is Esko - an industry standard and all-PDF workflow. The drying is by a Near Infra-Red tunnel as the inks do not need UV curing. A stacker takes care of the printed sheets, ready for die-cutting and carton assembly. As a 12 metre long and over 26 tonnes in weight beauty, it is an industry-strength corrugated print solution not for the feint-hearted.
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| Feed end of the new Domino X630i corrugated press |
The launch webinar, very capably chaired by Dr Sean Smyth with over 30 years of packaging and print experience, noted that currently only about 0.75% of corrugated cartons are digitally printed, with Litho-Laminate being common if the boxes are to be graphically rich. Otherwise, it's plain brown with maybe one colour and a barcode, or white labelled. However, from that tiny total share of tonnage, digital already accounts for 7.5% of the dollar value - a clear indication that digital short run, variable content and versioned boxes return better profits, service levels and customer satistaction - just as they have done in labels and sheetfed.
Domino was founded in 1978 as a commercial spin-off from the very clever boffins at Cambridge Consultants, who also gave us Xaar and Inca Digital. Owned since 2015 by Japanese giant Brother industries, it received cash injections for R&D to develop new global markets and currently accounts for around 10% of Brother Industries' sales.
The launch webinar presentation (with content that was originally planned for drupa 2020) included a segment from Finn MacDonald, President of Independent II, a Louisville, Kentucky full service sheet packaging plant who has ordered the first Domino X630i. Interestingly, Independent II also produce POS displays and have two Kongsberg CAD cutting tables.
Dr Smyth presented some very compelling corrugated industry facts and statistics along with growth trends such as shelf-ready packaging where the 'outer' corrugated box converts to a shelf display without the need stack shelves manually one product at a time.
Domino's Business Development Manager Matthew Condon responded to questions concerning market opportunities, saying:
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| Domino BDM Matt Condon |
"I think the uptake in digital in corrugated will be pushed by the customers of the corrugated converters, and having the corrugated converter understand the ROI with digital printing can benefit. However, this benefit is only realized with the proper type of work (short and medium run work, for example) is run on the press. Brands are looking for faster turnaround, and more ways to market regionally. The regional marketing approach could push local converters to supply local manufacturers to help respond to rapidly changing market needs efficiently.
We have seen since the COVID-19 pandemic, more companies considering bring manufacturing “home”, as the current climate has brought up issues of supply chain stability in addition to the changing governmental relationships between many countries and China. I believe the factors that will benefit digital are the increase popularity of e-commerce, the use of shelf ready packaging in the world of increasing SKU’s per brand, and the push for higher graphics on corrugated, which would be difficult to produce flexographically."
On the issue of inline die-cutting he says: "Digital is still quite new in the world of corrugated and the market still needs to become more comfortable with the technology. If corrugated follows the path of labels, the future could see a corrugated hybrid type of digital offering. I believe this offering is still a bit of a ways out."
We will bring you more on this as more information comes to hand.
https://www.domino-printing.com/en/industries/digital-printing/corrugated-converters
Domino is represented in Australia by Trimatt Systems: www.trimatt.com
