AICC Roundtable (CONT’D FROM PAGE 24)
Board Converting NEWS INTERNET DIRECTORY
we’ve got a single pass, we can do it faster and quicker. The ink is less expensive, so maybe that’ll be an advan- tage. Or there’s opportunities to displace maybe some litho work, specifically large format litho, because we have a large machine. But the unexpected thing that happened for us was that one of our biggest customers, we con- verted from flexo to digital. The reason why we were able to do that is they have 30 different versions, and so the amount of print plates that we were storing for them and running, and the set up times, was huge. But we didn’t un- derstand how beneficial it was going to be to switch them over to digital. And that’s been going really well. So that’s the unexpected surprise as we were able to convert what was a traditional flexo piece of business and turn that into a digital piece of business. Jones: Chad, some of the box makers here may want to know more about production numbers. Do you mind shar- ing your insights, what you’ve experienced? Wagner: To make it relative, we’ll compare it to tradi- tional flexographic printing and graphics in flexographic. When we’re running four- or five-color work on our Göp- fert, we probably average 30 MSF an hour. When we’re running well on the single pass machine, we’re probably running 20 MSF an hour. It’s slightly slower than what we do in the flexo space, but not that much. The fall off isn’t that much. The ink costs, of course, are significant. I would say the digital ink is probably 5X the flexo ink. I think the waste is higher on a single pass machine than it is on a traditional five-, six-color flexo press. That’s something we learned. I was shocked by that, but the waste numbers are a little bit higher. Jones: Is that cost of the ink or is that per job? Wagner: If you just take a graphics job on the flexo and you take a graphics job on the digital, it’s about 5X on the ink cost. It’s considerably expensive, but so are print plates. If you can avoid the plates and it’s the right volume and the art is volatile, then digital is the right solution. The speed is there for the industry. The cost, I think, still have a big opportunity to come down. I don’t think the ink needs to be 5X. I think it’ll probably come down eventual- ly, which will help everybody, and will help this part of the business grow further. Jones: Jake, have your selling strategies changed due to the digital capability? Sutherland: Yes, they have. George mentioned going after the litho work, going after litho buyers, going after maybe traditional flexo buyers. For us, the jump up in im- age quality and going to a current generation high-speed single-pass digital put us on different ground competitive- ly compared to where we were prior. We started actually seeing success with cosmetic buy- ers, with pharmaceutical buyers, buyers who really value
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October 27, 2025
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