Post-drupa, we have seen a stream of equipment purchase/installation announcements, but the HP announcement that RAKO Etiketten in Germany acquired five new Indigo WS6600 digital presses especially caught my attention. This is a large transaction, although admittedly, the packaging market hasn't suffered many of the challenges commercial print has seen (yet). I spent time speaking with Roger Gehrke, Manager of Digital Printing for the company, to understand their strategy and how digital printing fits into the mix. Gehrke manages the Hamburg site and is the company's go-to person for all things digital printing.

Founded in 1969, RAKO Etiketten is one of the largest and most advanced producers of self-adhesive labels in Europe today. The company employs more than 1,400 people at sites in Europe, Asia and South Africa producing individual packaging solutions manufactured by flexo, letterpress, silkscreen, offset and digital offset, and gravure, as well as combinations of these printing processes. According to Gehrke, the company has a total of 15 digital presses (13 are HP Indigo), including the five just purchased, and an order for another HP Indigo WS6600 has already been placed.

WTT:  Roger, when did RAKO first get into digital printing?

RG:  Our first digital press was the Indigo Omnius, purchased in 1997. These presses have come a long way since then.

WTT:  Today, what percent of your turnover would you estimate comes from digital?

RG:  I would estimate about 10% of our turnover related to labels comes from digital.  Conventional is still growing because of consolidation in the market as well as the fact that there is a certain amount of volume that is still, of course, produced with traditional technologies.

WTT:  If you look out over the next few years, how do you see the digital percentage changing?

RG:  My personal aim is 100%, but to be realistic, 15% is still a few years out.  That being said, if someone had told me a year ago that we would buy five or six digital presses in one year, it would have been hard to believe.  But we did that.  The bottom line is that we see the potential of digital printing in the label business, and that is why we are making these investments.

WTT:  How do you decide whether a job is run digitally or traditionally?

RG:  There are two primary issues to consider. First is the total volume of the job.  Today, if we talk about 20 to 30 kilometers of labels, you would still choose conventional production methods.  But everything below 8 kilometers can be profitable in digital. The second consideration is the complexity of the image.  Say you have 15 colors or a complex photo-like image.  It is hard to set up conventional presses to produce those kinds of jobs.  You also have to consider what the customer is willing to pay.  There are lots of benefits that digital printing can offer, including short lead times, different label sizes in the same run, and the ability to produce those complex images.  If a customer is willing to pay extra for those benefits, we could do 20 kilometers digitally, and we have done that.