Adoption of new technology is an important driver of long-term success, but proper appreciation of customer requirements should remain a fundamental consideration among printers and converters.
It goes without saying that — with a continued global economic downturn, a constant requirement to stay ahead of the competition and the need to deliver cost-effective output to ever-demanding customers — today’s print provider certainly has plenty on his or her plate.
Also crucial is the need to remain abreast of technological advances in order to drive flexibility and sharpen one’s overall service proposition in the pursuit of profitable growth.
It is this area in particular that can, for the more astute of printers, present welcome business opportunities in the midst of what can occasionally feel like one long firefight.
For example, the fundamental ability of digital ink jet printing technology to enable high-speed, high-quality, variable data printing onto a multitude of substrates can make it a differentiator to augmenting current business and opening doors to new opportunities.
By adding a digital element to his or her packaging or label operations, a traditional offset printer can complement existing offset or flexo printed product collateral with part personalisation, printing numbers, graphics, barcodes and addresses.
This is precisely the territory of systems like Domino’s inline drop-on-demand K-Series range, whose flagship K200 printer delivers speed and print quality, thanks to a multiple print nozzle configuration that enables higher resolution and throughput.
Significantly, in narrow-web applications like label printing, this allows the K200 to deliver accurate 300dpi printing — including standard CMYK spot colours — at 90m per minute.
Of course, adding a digital element to one’s business is only half a step to improving business. What is vital is an understanding of the potential such equipment holds and how this can add value to customer projects.
Print providers must therefore appreciate the needs of their own customers and how industry trends and requirements might influence those needs.
This, along with the appropriate gameplan, is far more likely to see the printer maintain existing contracts and secure business in new application areas and markets.
For example, the need for manufacturers to track and trace products, as a result of increasingly rigid legislation, is now a requirement across a range of industries.
Whether it is pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food products or beverages, manufacturers within these sectors need to always be aware of a product’s location within the supply chain.
To achieve this objective, manufacturers are dependent upon print providers deploying equipment that effectively applies the necessary information to their product packaging.
With this in mind, the foremost print solution providers actively build versatility into their equipment to ensure that printers and converters are able to meet the needs of their own customers.
This is why companies like Domino have introduced systems which in addition to printing numbers, graphics, addresses and personalised data, also allow users to print barcodes and even 2D matrix barcodes that include QR (Quick Response) codes & Data Matrix codes.
Adding this type of personalisation via high-speed print solutions like Domino’s K-Series enables printers to further complement their customers’ conventional printing requirements.
Similar benefits are provided by Domino’s recently launched Bitjet+ v4.5, the most versatile high-speed, in-line digital printing system to date.
The Bitjet+ v4.5 boasts an extremely compact print head which, in conjunction with fast drying inks, enables users to print on a plethora of substrates including coated paper, plastic and film.
Both Domino’s K-Series and Bitjet+v4.5 printers work in conjunction with the company’s intuitive Editor GT ink jet production line controller.
Based on the Microsoft Windows® platform, the Editor GT ensures correct printing of numbering sequences — often in relation to barcodes, unique and serialised numbers, addresses or 2D codes.
This includes batch numbering in pharmaceutical label printing, as well as gaming and security applications where it is vital that no labels are missing or duplicated in a sequence.
As a result, the Editor GT greatly assists print business owners aiming to reduce errors and uphold the integrity of their printed output.
Legislation and regulatory requirements places the high-quality application of variable-printed data in an increasingly important position.
In package printing, for example, print providers and converters who supply offset- or flexo-printed packaging to manufacturers, should still be mindful that that such packaging will undergo coding or late-stage customisation.
Regardless of the capability of the printing technology employed — be it continuous or thermal ink jet, or even laser — it will only fulfil its objective if it is able to display coded information clearly and prominently on the final packaging.
Given the need to apply an increasing amount of variably printed data, forward-thinking printers would be well aware of the need to account for an adequate area of ‘white space’ during the creative/design stage.
While some marketers and designers bemoan the need to consider such a detail, this is nevertheless an important factor as the need to uphold track and trace capability becomes increasingly prevalent.
Of course, while such considerations may appear slight in the grand scheme of things, they form just one of a number of factors to consider when it comes to differentiating ones service offering and sharpening competitiveness against the competition.
After all, as has been mentioned, achieving business success is as much about proper understanding of customer requirements.
Only at that stage can the process of adopting the most appropriate technology required to fulfil such requirements begin.
Issued on behalf of Domino
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