‘Pack’ to the Future: Reasons to Embrace Pace of Change

“The pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again,” is what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during his keynote at the 2018 World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos, Switzerland. His famous quote perfectly encapsulates the era we are living in; one where the pace of change – particularly technological change – is accelerating faster than we can truly imagine.

So how does one define change? Is it an opportunity? Or a threat? Change can be both. The worst thing to do in the face of a fast-changing environment is nothing at all. However, big traditional industries like the packaging industry are not always the quickest to embrace change and adopt new technology.

‘Industry 4.0’ has been discussed for several years, but digital transformation is still slow-going in many packaging companies. A McKinsey poll of global manufacturing companies found that only 26% said they had scaled some or many Industry 4.0 use cases. The reason being that in the packaging industry, many companies are still primarily focused on the short to medium term, and perhaps have concerns about the initial investment required to integrate new technology.

By reaching an inflection point, companies must think like start-ups by embracing change, be more flexible, quick to act, and agile.

With a strategy built on the pillars of digitalisation, connectivity, automation, and sustainability, BOBST can help brand owners and converters to adapt to the new reality and future-proof their businesses. There are five reasons for embracing the pace of change:

Meeting Rapidly Changing Consumer Tastes and Priorities

The rise in technology has handed power to the consumer. In the past, brands had much more control. Packaging was standardised, where batch sizes and time to market were more predictable. ​

With technology today, consumers have a voice to engage with brands and their peers. They want personalisation, with unique and memorable experiences. They want sustainability. And in the sea of consumer items, they want something new, which stands out, and speaks to them as a person.

Brand owners and converters have no choice but to keep pace with rapidly changing consumer tastes and priorities. This means shorter runs and shorter times to market. To be able to deliver this, they must embrace solutions with digitalisation, connectivity, and automation.

BOBST solutions, like the MASTER M5 for labels and flexible packaging is built for full digitalisation of the production workflow, the ultimate press for converters willing to automate their production line. Configurable with print cylinders or sleeves, the machine is ready to be equipped with oneECG technology delivering repeatable consistency run after run, irrespective of the application run length. It has high press uptime and enables very fast time-to-market.

Or take gravure, which has always been a clear choice for premium quality packaging but until now has been challenging for shorter print runs and faster delivery. BOBST’s smartGRAVURE – developed for the MASTER RS 6003 for flexible packaging – transforms gravure from a highly manual operation to a fully digitalised workflow. As set-up times are offline, machine downtime for preparation is significantly reduced. Printers can produce exceptional and consistent quality, while delivering orders quickly with high profitability, whether they are small, medium, or long runs.

Shorter runs and rapid time-to-market are possible – all while maintaining the highest print quality.

Facing Global Sustainability Challenges Head On

Environmental and sustainability issues are at the top of the agenda of governments, companies, and individuals all over the world. In the past, sustainability in packaging was something to aspire to, but was not necessarily a priority. But today it no longer is the same.

Major corporations have made bold sustainability pledges, which the packaging industry must now help to deliver. Sustainability has become a leading priority for consumers. With a responsibility to lead and innovate in this space, BOBST helps converters and brand owners meet sustainability targets by reducing the environmental impact of future and existing packaging machines. The company plans to reduce energy consumption by 20% for the machines sold in 2030 versus the 2022 baseline.

Equipment sustainability will be improved through reduction of ink, waste, and substrate. For example, oneECG – the extended colour gamut technology, which digitalises and automates colour management – creates no ink waste, uses 30% less ink, and reduces make-ready time and make-ready waste by up to 90%.

For environmentally friendlier packaging, BOBST has partnered with industry leaders to develop oneBARRIER, a range of innovative, industrially viable recycle-ready mono-material substrates as alternatives to non-recyclable multi-material film.

Further, BOBST competence centers and R&D process experts are helping brand owners, converters, and industry partners to develop their own solutions and meet their own sustainability targets.

Tackling global environmental challenges may seem daunting, but there are steps that all brand owners and converters can take to rapidly improve the sustainability of their packaging.

Adapting to New Workforce Realities

There is a global skills shortage affecting converters, which will only become more pronounced. Traditional printing and packaging methods rely on skilled packaging technicians. A decade ago, one could find converters with skilled technicians making a lifetime career of their abilities. Today, while workers of traditional printing technologies are gradually retiring, the industry is facing a shortage of trained technicians to fill in the void.

This trend increases the need for easy-to-use and automated machines, with preference for all-in-one or one-pass printing solutions over multi-process solutions. Digital solutions will become more prominent, displacing conventional technologies and bridging the skills gap.

The DIGITAL MASTER series for labels leverages proven flexo approaches with recent innovative inkjet developments, providing a fully digitalised and automated production line from printing to embellishment and die-cutting, all coupled with inline quality inspection at full speed and automatic calibration with the BOBST ACCUCHECK system. Each print, embellishment, and finishing module includes a high degree of digitalisation and automation for exceptionally high uptime, low waste, high quality, and outstanding repeatability regardless of the operator’s skills. Besides, all modules are fully developed by BOBST and driven by one single piece of software, ensuring perfect synchronisation.

Another system is oneSET, part of the smartGRAVURE package. Though gravure traditionally relies on a manual set up process requiring high skill levels, oneSET automatically suggests the most suitable and efficient machine settings based on the basic job parameters in the customer’s PDF file.

Yet another is the intelligent Metallizing Assistant, which represents a breakthrough in machine integrated process expertise for vacuum metallizing. It automates the deposition process, resulting in more output and consistency of the end product, while dramatically reducing required training time for operators.

It’s also important to stress that it is not a case of machines replacing the human workforce throughout the industry, but rather, changes in job descriptions and roles that will create new and exciting opportunities for careers, such as those with digital and AI expertise.

Future-proofing Businesses in Face of Global Uncertainty

The Global Peace Index states that the world has become less stable in the past 17 years with substantial increases in political instability, number of conflicts, and violent demonstrations. With a global pandemic in the mix too, we have been living through a period of significant uncertainty. ​

For the packaging industry, the uncertainty has led to a series of challenges, including hikes in raw material costs, disruptions to supply chains, and fluctuations in market demand.

In the face of uncertainty, converters need reliability – machines they can count on, connected to a partner with the abilities and reach to act quickly if support is needed, such as BOBST’s Helpline Essential and Helpline Plus AR. These remote assistance services ensure customers reduce machine downtime and save on repair costs. Connectivity enables provision of data to inform rapid decision making.

BOBST also acts as a strategic partner for its customers. BOBST Application Management is a hands-on innovative consulting service, which is designed for the needs of converters and brand owners. Through BOBST Application Management, customers can receive guidance on technologies, raw materials, processes, and business cases along the entire packaging value chain.

Maintaining Competitive Advantage

Competition in the packaging industry is fiercer than ever before. It’s vital that brand owners and converters stay ahead of industry trends and establish a competitive advantage.

In recent years, connectivity, digitalisation, automation, and sustainability have emerged as global market trends in printing and converting. These four pillars are now completely transforming the packaging value chain, from a series of isolated silos to a connected end-to-end overview. A major acceleration of data usage from PDF to twin PDF, job recipe, machine learning, AI, and using best information throughout the production workflow end to end are being seen. Embracing these pillars can help customers to address their pain points, gain a competitive advantage, and reach their targets.

At the heart of the transformation is BOBST Connect, the cloud-based digital platform that enables overview and orchestration of the production process, enhancing, and improving the packaging productivity of equipment. BOBST Connect is constantly evolving, and regularly introducing new functionalities that help secure investments and enhance productivity.

Embracing Change Together

Change can be daunting, but it is also exciting. Traditionally, the packaging industry has been slow to change, and it’s true that some of the older, traditional approaches still have value. But the world is changing, and the pace of change is increasing.

This is the start of the AI era, and though unclear as to what the future holds, transformative change is happening all around us, and at great speed.

For companies to survive and thrive, it’s important to be a part of the change, to embrace it, and evolve as needed. BOBST will continue to stay ahead of industry trends, embracing the new era of connectivity, digitalisation, automation, and sustainability, and providing solutions that help customers to stay ahead and maintain a competitive advantage.