After my final day at Labelexpo in Brussels, I have had a chance to walk (run) the floor of much of the event. Not all of it yet, since it is 11 (yes 11) halls, and I have short legs. But during the time I spent running and sitting on the Metro, I have had a chance to reflect on some of the bigger trends I saw. I did a quick review in my last article, but things started to gel as the days went on, so this article will be a bit more in-depth. Generally, most of what was shown was evolutionary not necessarily revolutionary, although we may see some of the latter at drupa next year.

First of all, as I mentioned, there were a lot of hybrid presses on the show floor. Flexo presses with inkjet or toner digital integrated imaging; digital presses with flexo imaging in order to get the great opaque white needed for many labels and flexible packaging or precoating for plastics, etc.; a variety of presses with inline enhancement capabilities, etc. Yes, there were also plain vanilla digital and/or flexo presses on display as well, but there are some undeniable trends evolving. Below you can see a few examples of the types of press solutions on display, and many of them do seem to have a similar appearance although, depending on the specific configuration, a different end use. If they are hybrid, there is usually an imaging unit of varying size in the middle of the flexo transport. If it is just digital, there is usually an imaging unit with a feed and rewind on either end. In some cases, this hybrid integration was part of the initial design and, in some cases, it was added after the fact.

Omet XJet with Durst Imaging.