(See also David Zwang's video interview with Bobst's Francois Martin.)

I have been researching and writing about advancements in printing technologies for many years, starting with the standardization and control of analog offset presses, going through the evolution of electrophotographic photocopiers to digital printing presses, and then on to production inkjet. During each of these transformational introductions, there has been displacement and realignment of the existing print technology roles. Packaging production is now going through one of these periods. There are many old and new options, raising the question, what print technology choice is best to produce packaging? 

Recalling the introduction of electrophotographic presses for commercial print, the primary strengths in comparison to offset were: smaller footprint, lower cost of entry, on-demand short-run advantages in both cost and time, and the ability to do variable-data printing. At the time, of all of the indicated benefits, the one that was most highly promoted was variable-data printing. Interestingly, putting aside differences in quality at the time of introduction, the benefits of variable-data printing were limited mostly to transactional applications. Eventually the advantages of variable data in direct mail took hold as did higher quality, but even then, the volume of variable-data print was dwarfed by short-run on-demand applications. The transition to production inkjet is following a similar progression, with each of these print technologies displacing offset and subsequently toner-based digital print volumes—although, at the same time, the “pre-transformational” existing technologies introduced advancements to help mitigate some of the benefits of the new technology and slow the displacement.