2020 will be remembered for many things, although for some it may also be worth forgetting. For packaging, however, it really was a transformative year, not so much for new and significant developments, of which there were some, but rather for triggering increased awareness of the value of digital packaging production. This in itself is significant since it will help to drive and accelerate the ongoing migration from analog-to-digital production. In packaging, just as we saw and still see in commercial print, the shift from analog to digital is multifaceted. There is the technology shift, which brings with it lots of new developments in both analog and digital production solutions, but there is also a significant and more difficult shift in how businesses adopt and adapt.

There were some interesting new product announcements this year even in the absence of drupa, and they are still coming. As an analyst and media person, I was used to visiting the manufacturing plants and seeing the new technologies, although this year we all learned how to do business virtually. Like the original moon landing, we need to believe what we saw on the screen. So, I guess it really isn’t that different from “some” of what we would have seen at drupa anyway.

Packaging spans such a wide application area, that we can’t cover it all. However, I will highlight what I believe are the seminal developments that will affect the migration from analog to digital packaging production. Some of these developments reflect in the digitization of analog technologies and some new developments in toner (EP) and some in inkjet.