In recent years, a paper crisis has brought significant challenges for the printing and packaging industry. As current predictions estimate the cost of paper to rise by 2.1% within the next few years, printers and packaging manufacturers are becoming increasingly concerned with losing profits. After all, not only is the production process in and of itself highly complex and expensive, but now it’s most vital resource will cost an arm and a leg.

In addition, the fact that the majority of press runs produce a significant amount of scrap is highly damaging both environmentally and economically. Interestingly, in this particular scenario, the economic and environmental issues are inherently linked. Simply put, if printers could find ways to maximize paper, not only would they produce less waste, but they also would not need to buy nearly as much of this expensive resource.

While the industry-wide concerns are worrisome, there are steps that can be taken to ensure printing and manufacturing remain both profitable and environmentally sustainable–a true win- win for everyone.

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Produce higher quality products

When raw-materials cost about 50% of total production costs, many business owners may choose to scale down. However, the strategy is problematic to say the least.

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Instead, thinking outside the box can yield greater results. If you’re manufacturing a higher quality, value-added product, you can charge more, and if your clients know they are getting more for their money, the extra cost will not deter them. Furthermore, positioning yourself as a high quality service gives you a niche to rise above your competition. In an industry where materials are expensive and stakes are high, differentiating your business can help you gain new market share and increase profit.

Waste Less

Since presses work with tremendous amounts of paper, it is difficult to estimate the amount of waste produced when manufacturing packages of any run size. However, the we all know it’s highly significant.

But savings can definitely be made through maximizing paper or cardboard use by ganging jobs.  This way, trees are conserved, money is saved, and of course significantly less trash is produced. Not only will the environment be thankful, but you will also appreciate the added economic incentive of buying less paper per package produced.

Find ways to produce faster

While it may seem counter-intuitive to invest in high-tech production solutions, if it can help slash production time and produce a higher quality output, the amount of product produced per hour will increase dramatically, and generally this means the amount of energy used is also decreased.

Digital finishing solutions help tremendously in this department. With these innovative new machines, you simply create a sample identical to the package you intend to make. With this method, you eliminate the elaborate process of creating a sample on a sample maker, then producing the tool or die for production and again pulling of samples to check the product.(which is also an extremely wasteful process).

This technology allows you to send a finished product to clients faster, resulting in happy customers and high recommendations. In addition, you will also be able to handle the growth in customers as job runs get shorter.

Allow for Easier Customization

Take the creative design to the next level by offering packaging clients the option to customize. Often times, the package production process is so cumbersome and time consuming, that clients are unable to let their imagination run wild.

Since traditional die-cutting makes customization a huge headache, it is worthwhile to seek out alternative resources to simplify the process.  Believe it or not, there are ways to create custom packaging without outsourcing the tooling to third-party manufacturers.

The Highcon Euclid  machines use laser technology to cut and a special polymer to crease labels, cardboard and microflute. By reducing the manual labor involved, greater customization and variety can be accomplished faster and more inexpensively than ever. Most importantly, since dies are no longer necessary, the energy and resources saved will add up significantly. Other high-caliber machines include Luciano and Accraply.

The rising paper expense is intimidating enough to threaten even the most stable printing businesses. However, despite these challenges, the printing and packaging industry is not going anywhere anytime soon. After all, packaging and branding companies will always need to produce fresh looks that make their products pop off the shelves. In order to keep up with this need, printers simply need to rise to the occasion by getting creative and more design oriented while increasing quality and environmental sustainability. This way, they can easily gain a loyal client-base and keep up with the ever-evolving market.

About the author

Yoav Vilner is CEO at Ranky – Growth & marketing for Startups. He’s a blogger for VentureBeat, TheNextWeb, Inc Magazine, ReadWrite, SocialMediaExaminer, CrazyEgg and the SalesForce Blog. He’s very enthusiastic about startups, gadgets and all-things-marketing.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/sustainability/printing-revolution-environmentalism-profitability-go-hand-hand-01259838#pQDvsVCwzZRtBZiU.99

The printing industry has continued to change ever since it made the major shift to digital about a decade ago.  With digital trends continuing to shape the printing industry, these rates of change have sped up as fast as the technology that pushes the industry’s boundaries.  Printing speeds have gone up as the market has diversified to serve more specific niches while advancements such as the electro photographic engine and high-speed inkjet have made the industry a changed landscape from even a few short years ago.

Get the Latest Trends in Digital Printing

Keeping up with the latest trends in digital printing can be a bit daunting since everything changes at the speed of light.  To keep you in the loop, we’ve put together this guide to the latest digital printing trends.

1. Sheet-fed Digital Printing.  With vendors such as Fujifilm, HP, Screen, Delphax, Konica and Minolta talking so much about sheet-fed digital printing, it’s no wonder that we’ve already seen a number of new systems already hitting the shelves.  Commercial printing companies are really going to benefit the most here, with the ability to print up B2 sheets poised to change the way companies do their printing business.  From direct mailing and other print marketing to printing up books and booklets, the costs for digital printing are going down while the variety of format sizes is expanding.

2. Three Dimensional Printing.  3D printing isn’t only a trend, it’s also super-exciting in terms of the future of digital printing.  Jetting technologies are the biggest topic of discussion this year, mainly focusing on the materials used for jetting rather than the inks themselves.  While some analysts in the field are expecting 3D printing to reach a peak—if it hasn’t already—others are looking at the impact of 3D print technologies as a fresh new start.  If the latter school of thought is true, the 3D printing trend is just taking hold.  Look for this trend in digital printing to continue to skyrocket until every last resource is tapped out of it and there is no place to turn except for another avenue.

3. Jetted Materials and Substrates.  With the printing industry seeing a large uptick in non-paper and plastic materials (not that there is any down spike in those two categories), it’s no wonder inkjet for foil, ceramic, textile, wood, metal and glass are trending.  Non-document digital printing is expected to continue to spike sharply with many production announcements centered around packaging, corrugated boxes, ceramics, labels and cartons.  On top of that, 3D printing is taking hold in the packaging industry, making design and printing a big part of getting the speed of the digital world out there into reality.

4. Inkjet.  Inkjet is big right now and it’s not only going to remain so, it’s going to grow until it is absolutely monstrous.  Inkjet systems have taken such a hold on the digital printing industry because they are not only high-speed, but ultra-reliable as well.  On top of that, their options for use are scalable, meaning that you can expect inkjet to start to take over many other areas of technology as well.  This has already started as inkjet has taken over label and color document printing and wide format graphics (both indoor and outdoor).  Expect this trend to continue to push into the territories of publications such as newspapers and catalogs as well as commercial printing in general.  The only thing to hold inkjet back from taking over the world is the high costs of substrate.  If someone makes a breakthrough in getting those costs down to make inkjet more cost-effective in other settings, it should signal the funeral pyre for other forms of digital printing.

5. Customization.  The digital printing industry is following in some of the same footsteps package printing already laid down in that some of the high costs of a high volume production are being outweighed by the selling potential of personalization in printing.  This means you can expect a rise in on-demand book production, materials for marketing and merchandise for photography.  Instead of mass production, the industry should see a shift towards mass customization.

Keeping Up with the Latest Trends in Digital Print

As you can see, there is a ton of opportunity in wide format and industrial applications.  Inkjet is going to continue to make waves in the industry and the market is going to continue to get more personalized in general.  With these changing tides, it’s important that you stay up on the latest digital printing trends as they occur.

About the author

This article is written by Eddie Tabrizian on behalf of Prism Photo Imaging, a trusted local photo lab and digital printing store in Los Angeles for over 10 years specializing in digital printing, photo printing, copy services etc. If you’re on the lookout for a local photo and digital printing lab in Los Angeles area, Prism Photo Imaging would indeed be the perfect choice.

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