With the announcement at drupa, that the former world's largest printing company, RR Donnelly, has ordered 15 new digital presses from HP, this news, alongside several other all-digital multiple press orders, begs the question 'Is this the drupa that sees accelerated decline of offset and accelerated uptake of digital?' Andy McCourt applies some critical thought to the questions.
HP and RR Donnelly executives gather for a photocall following the announcement
At drupa 2024, HP, and RR Donnelley & Sons Company (RRD) have announced a strategic collaboration to expand its industry leading production capacity with the commitment to install in excess of fifteen new HP Indigo and PageWide Presses. These presses will join RRD’s existing fleet across facilities in North America, China, and Central America.
HP and RRD have been working together for the past thirty years, and this new expansion of RRD’s existing fleet will drive efficiency and time-savings throughout the entire production cycle. This expansion will enhance productivity and flexibility to support their clients’ diverse needs in the Packaging, Commercial, Direct Mail, and Statement businesses.
John Pecaric Chief Operating Officer at RRD says: “We are committed to delivering the highest quality brand experiences for our clients’ customers through multiple touchpoints in the physical and digital customer journey. We have a strategic relationship with HP that provides us with early access to innovative technology that continues to make print a valuable medium.”
Haim Levit, Senior Vice President and Division President at HP says: “HP’s platform of solutions derived by its Indigo and PageWide InkJet solutions are the most comprehensive in the Industry. Our R&D investment has brought to market equipment solutions that help print organizations differentiate their market approaches. We are launching several new solutions during drupa that will showcase the broad industry applications we can solve. We are excited to see the thirty-year relationship with RRD grow in new and exciting ways in the future.”
Lisa Pruett, president, Packaging and Labels Segment at RRD says: “The market is constantly changing, and with our highly connected, global network we remain committed to investing in the right technology to meet our clients’ evolving needs. Speed to market, high-quality products, and strong partnerships are important to our clients — we continue to keep those priorities top of mind.”
Craig Robertson, President of Commercial Print at RRD says: “Our network of 43 connected U.S. Commercial print facilities relies upon executing programs for our clients across multiple sites on a daily basis. We need the best technology in print to execute high-quality print reliably. HP helps us make that happen.”
While the mixture of Pagewide and HP Indigo presses has not been revealed it is clear that the Indigos are most likely label and packaging presses while the Pagewides are web-fed commercial presses. HP Pagewide uses inkjet while HP Indigo uses lqiuid toner.
Of cuckoos and springtime
As the first sound of the cuckoo can herald the upcoming Spring, when coupling this large digital press order with others announced at drupa, including from Canon, Landa, Fujifilm and others; could this be the signal that digital is finally at the tipping point of supplanting offset? Or at least the start of the trend, just as Offset's arrival in the early 1900s took 60 years to truly replace most letterpress.
As Churchill said of the success of the Battle of Britain in 1942: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” For thirty years, digital has been regarded as a useful short-run convenience, or a process that offers variable data without imprinting re-runs of offset 'shells.' What this drupa has and is showing is that most investment dollars by major printers are flowing through to faster, more efficient, connected and 'smartified' workflows and hardware.
Offset paper waste from 1,000 typical jobs according to Landa - near zero with digitalIf there are any seriously large investments in large sheetfed and web offset presses, they are certainly not being announced by the major western print groups at this drupa. Big offset orders are there, such as 7 new Heidelberg XL75s and CX75s to Thung Hua Sinn printing of Thailand, and 15 Speedmaster CX (70 x 100) to Zengzhou Shengda Print Group of China. These are the typical markets for new offset installs now but for westernised markets, it's all about digital and high-speed adaptable digital at that. The introduction of 21,000 sheet-per-hour presses is great and there are significant markets for them, replacing slower, ageing offset presses but mostly Asian and developing markets are buying multiple offset presses. The RR Donnelly announcement is significant: once the world's largest printer (up to 2007) the venerable RRD is now broken up and owned by private equity and, at around AUD$10 billion in sales a year, probably the third or fourth largest print business in the world. Dai Nippon, Toppan, Quad would be larger in sales volumes.
But, at least in westernised markets, the uptake of digital is not a top-down affair. It is being driven bottom-up from customer demand. Print runs are shorter, fragmented, versioned, personalised and with a sharp eye on sustainability and waste reduction. However, even digital maven Benny Landa does not foresee the total demise of offset. "Offset will still rule for a long time in very long, one job types of print." However on the stunning Landa stand, there was a physical display of the amount of waste generated by 1,000 typical jobs if printed offset. (see pictures). Waste that is virtually zero with Landa digital Nanography and other digital processes. Landa presses have already entered the Chinese print market - a place where long runs still rule and digital is still a 'novelty.'
This is not a harbinger of doom article for offset, but it is a thought provoker that all printers, large and small, need to be prepared for a major shift in purchasing patterns for print and packaging - this applies to Flexography (HP has claimed its V12 label press 'breaks the flexo barrier') and Gravure as well as Offset. Such patterns and global trends favour digital print methods in the long-term. No longer will 50% of books printed, for example, go back to be pulped. No longer will redundant packaging stored in warehouses be incinerated or repurposed. Whether a 100-sales potboiler, 'My life as an insurance salesman' or a 1 million JK Rowling blockbuster; the how and where print happens will favour digital and the RR Donnelly announcement tends to support this trend.
Just a walk through the hallowed halls of drupa will show that it is primarily a digital print exhibition - what will drupa 2028 look like? end of beginning or beginning of the end for a brave new world of printing - digitally?
Andy McCourt
To learn more about RRD, visit: https://www.rrd.com/
