Surge in SKUs opens new packaging markets for webfed offset

For firms such as Muller Martini, an ‘explosion is SKUs’ spells an opportunity to grab new markets for webfed offset in labelling and flexible packaging.

Depending on substrate, the cap is about 25,000sqm. Your runs fall within that? Read on. Muller Martini’s Bernd Sauter reckons he can save you money.

“If your run lengths are below 25,000sqm but greater than 1,000sqm – in primary-run jobs not repeats – we will be the most competitive solution in overall cost,” said Sauter, managing director of the Printing Presses Division.

“We can reduce your costs and improve your image quality,” he told Packaging MEA.

David Muncaster, Goss’s director of business development for packaging, shares the outlook that markets are giving fresh importance to offset’s low cost of image change.

“The rise in SKUs and the corresponding drop in average run lengths means that ‘the image cost’ becomes critically important as it represents a far higher percentage of total cost of producing a print run,” he said.

And markets are also shifting to give greater value to offset’s image quality, said Sauter.

“You go into any market, it’s cluttered – brands are so hypercompetitive,” he said.

“The average shopper in North America goes in with a list of 10 items and they come out with 18 – and it’s those extra eight items where the margin is made. It’s the impulse buy. People buy with their eyes.”

Brand managers are demanding “more aesthetics: colours, higher lines, more photos, more versions”, he added.

Yet there is no trade-off in cost or speed.

“At the same time, the brand manager is going to demand lower costs: ‘I want smaller run sizes. I want you to develop me new products, new combinations of substrates’, and ‘No, I’m not going to pay any more for it’. And, in response time, they want you to do all of this faster – more quality, the same costs and ‘I want you to do it faster’.”

Doing the maths

Sauter and Muncaster make similar calculations for the run lengths where webfed offset takes over as the most economical option. Through adding up each cost from pre-press onwards, Muller Martini gives 25,000sqm as the cut-off for its VSOP (variable sleeve offset printing) technology.

Gravure emerges is clearly the best option beyond 80,000sqm, said Sauter. Flexo the takes over for intermediate run lengths. But offset’s lower image carrier costs kick in for a substantial slice of the market.

Digital is still limited to “very small runs”, in his view. “If you’re looking at digital, you should be looking at VSOP,” he said.

“If you are looking to make a fundamental change in your business processes – and you should be, by the way – you should equally be investigating this technology.”

Goss’s Muncaster marks out offset’s niche from offering image costs “10-15 times cheaper” than flexo or gravure.

“Based on the research and calculations we’ve done, as a general approximation based on comparison of ‘mid web’ machines (520–1050mm) printing on film, the breakeven point for flexo gravure and web offset is around 150,000sqm,” he said.

“Beyond that gravure is generally the most cost effective. As you drop down below that level then flexo and offset are more cost effective. As you get down below 75,000sqm, then offset starts to really pull away from flexo and at 25,000sqm and below, until you get down to the 3,000sqm digital area, there is an extremely compelling argument for offset.”

Muncaster also stresses the gains in lead times as brand owners strive to hit sustainability targets and cut waste through “just in time and just enough” ordering.

“Offset plates can be produced in minutes, flexo plates in hours and gravure plates in days or weeks,” he said.

In Germany, packagers are already clearly making these cost and time calculations, according to Karl-Heinz Thiele, product manager for Muller Martini printing presses.

“A big label manufacturer working with gravure knows he can only accept jobs of 10,000sqm and higher, otherwise he loses money on the image carrier costs,” he said.

“So he talks with his sister company to get an offset press that can do these jobs.”

Trends in substrates

But the standoff between flexo and offset in packaging also involves considerations of substrates.

For Muncaster, in fact, a key driver in unlocking offset’s new markets is changing fashions in materials.

In his view, growing use of shrink labels with 360 images for re-launching products will draw business from sheetfed offset, which cannot handle the new substrates.

“Converters currently producing labels with sheetfed will look to web offset to produce these products,” he said.

“The precise tension control available on modern web offset machines enables converters to run a vast range of substrates, which provides a high degree of flexibility to adapt to such market changes.”

Sauter also claims an edge for web offset when printing on thinner gauge film.

“It used to be we couldn’t even think about these materials, but withservo motors, stretch correction and the automation of controls, we have made this user friendly,” he said.

“Major players come to our demonstration centre and discover what can be done. We’ve been doing it for more than 10 years. We have people that now have expertise of these films with offset. There is a growing knowledge base.”

In labelling, Rotatek’s Brava has won over firms such as Austria’s Marzek Etiketten through enabling a switch from glue labels to pressure-sensitive labels, said managing director Bibiana Rodriguez Vidal.

Offset vs HD flexo?

In quality, offset’s champions recognise no rivals, but they will admit that HD flexo has closed the gap.

For Sauter, HD flexo is “getting close to the quality”. “But you can do this in offset with standard offset,” he said. “You’re not needing an HD expert. This is where offset starts.”

Nor does he expect to tussle with HD flexo over packaging markets.

“A report by the North American Flexo Printers Association concludes that only 15% of the industry is looking to invest in HD flexo,” he added.

Offset technology such as Muller Martini’s VSOP offers “extraordinary colour manipulation”, he added. “Zero to 100% is easy. We can offer unified dot control and a standardised prepress. The dot on your file is going to be the dot on your plate.”

Offset’s edge on flexo in quality includes enhanced colour gamut (ECG) in high use, according to Muller Martini’s Thiele.

“We can manipulate the colours on the press and, often, we can configure the press for our flexo customers so they can get away with fewer colours,” he added.

“With four offset colours, you can print 2300 different tones. With four flexo colours, you can only print four tones.”

Muncaster notes vignettes and high-line screening as two of offset’s clear advantages over flexo.

Hybrid installations

Yet offset specialists like Muller Martini are not expecting packagers to renounce all other technologies.

“Most installations of  our presses are hybrid,” said Thiele. “A flexo unit is often installed as the first unit, to give a heavy, solid, opaque white, but some machines are also fitted with rotogravure.”

Muller Martini even manufactures the flexo elements on its VSOP, which features three shafts for rapid switching between printing methods.

“You change the plate cylinder and the blanket cylinder but the impression cylinder stays in place,” he said.

At its factory at Maulburg in Germany, the firm produces four offset webfed presses with applications in labelling and flexible packaging: Alprinta 52 V, Alprinta 74 V, VSOP 520 and VSOP 850.

A VSOP 850, the widest option with a printing width of 33” (840mm), offers a repeat range between 15” (381mm) and 30” (762mm). The Alprinta 74V can print at widths of up to 29” (736mm), with repeats from 20” (508mm) to 28 1/3” (9720mm).

In the field, Muller Martini’s hybrid installations include a VSOP with nine offset units and a flexo unit at Hammer Packaging in Rochester in New York State.

The press is the company’s third VSOP and serves its market in shrink sleeves for food and drink in Mexico and North America.

Goss, which offers a web range from 520mm up to 1905mm, has a hybrid Sunday Vpak 500 at Precision Press, in the US, offering eight colours and one flexo unit.

The setup features inline lamination and can handle both UV and EB inks with a repeat length of 16” (406mm) to 33.4” (848mm).

Rotatek’s installation at Marzek marries six offset units with two flexo units, along with silk screen plus hot foil stamping, foil embossing and UV dryers.

“As Rotatek, we believe always in combining technologies in one machine to get the best results of each technology,” said Rodriguez Vidal.

“We see, in particular, growth in Africa and the Middle East in this technology as usually the same company wants to print different kinds of substrates like labels, folding cartons, flexible materials, and the offset combined machines assure a standard quality on all materials.”

Platform change

But offset is still only nibbling at the substantial slice of labelling and flexible packaging eyed by firms such as Goss, Rotatek and Muller Martini.

In Western markets, offset holds about 8% of the market in labelling and 5% in flexible packaging, said Sauter. Yet Muller Martini has already established its technology in a decade of installations: “There are over 100 VSOPs in the market”.

A “growing knowledge base” is also available to ease the switch, he added.

“There are many mature suppliers in pre-press that have made it incredibly easy – and, unfortunately perhaps, there is a lot of offset experience available.”

Food compliant inks are available from suppliers such as Zeller or Sun Chemical, he added.

But he admits there is “a steep hill” to climb in convincing packagers to make “a platform change” from flexo, in particular.

“This is a more complex selling process,” he said.

“But we’ve reorganised our sales organisation. We are identifying this as a priority product.”

Rotatek’s Rodriguez Vidal acknowledges flexo printers can be wary.

“It means new prepress, new printers, new workflow, new training for the commercial team – any change in the market is difficult always.”

Muncaster points to a lack of familiarity with offset for converters coming from a gravure or flexo background. “Offset is often seen as a complicated black art,” he said.

“Yes, in some respects offset is more complex than gravure or flexo, but this complexity also brings increased flexibility in terms of colour control and expanded colour gamuts, process colour and so on.”

The chief hurdle, though, could be the initial investment, he added.

“It’s true that web offset machines are generally more expensive than their flexo or gravure competitors,” he said.

“However, the initial investment cost is only one side of the equation. If you consider that for each and every different job produced on flexo or gravure, the image cost will be 10-15 times more expensive, then you need only look at the number of different images you produce each year, and the rate at which that number has increased over the past few years.”

Sauter is equally sure the numbers are on his side.

In the meantime, he is encouraging firms to bring their images and jobs to Muller Martini’s training centre in Maulburg while working with “brand quality gatekeepers” to prove offset’s potential contribution.

“We believe that there’s so much value that it’s going to happen,” he said.