Page 33 - Packaging News Magazine July-August 2018

July-August 2018
www.packagingnews.com.au
DIGITAL PRINTING
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packaging
crush’ trays which have comparable strength, improved ventilation while requiring less raw material.
BROADENING HORIZONS
So why focus on innovation, when a huge chunk of the corrugated pack- aging market by volume is still brown boxes printed on traditional flexo? According to Lowe, Orora sees broad- ening its horizons as a strong value proposition for both its business and its customers.
“We believe the best opportunity we have to grow our business and the value of our company is through in- novation. It’s not just through focus- ing on large-volume, low-specifica- tion work, which is still an important part of the fibre business – but by in- novating, we believe we can deliver the most value over time across all the segments we supply,” he said.
Take digital print as an example – at present, digital represents only a small share of the global market for corrugated packaging. When you consider, however, that the global market for corrugated packaging is worth around $116 billion per year, even a small share can be worth a lot of money.
It’s because of the vast opportu- nities in digital that Orora invest-
It’s about helping our customers grow their business, so we’re investing in these sorts of technologies to give them a leg up.” – Brian Lowe
ed in the Nozomi, after testing the potential with an HP multi-pass digital machine first.
“We wanted to offer our custom- ers the full range of capabilities from standard boxes to high quality print, including litho laminating as a separate process,” said Lowe. “We also wanted to offer short run capa- bilities, which is difficult with con- ventional technologies, but simple with digital, and the ability to do variable data printing.”
Unlike flexo, which requires long setup times for each new job, making short runs uneconomical, digital offers the ability for clients and brand owners to regularly re- fresh their design and marketing to keep up with consumer demands.
“Brands are not content with running the same thing for the next five years – they want to look at the next month or six months ahead and decide what they’re go- ing to change up,” said Lowe. “If you don’t have the capability to support that, then I’m not sure you can offer what the customers and the marketplace want.”
This isn’t to say that Orora is giv- ing up on the classic brown box en- tirely, of course – there’ll always be a substantial place for traditional flexo work in its business model, according to Lowe.
“Our customers don’t need every box to look like a showpiece, be- cause some of it’s just to get product from A to B, where it’s unpacked without anyone seeing it. There’ll still be a large portion of the indus- try consisting of low-cost brown boxes with basic print,” he said.
For Lowe, however, moving be- yond just the plain brown box is a
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The new EFI Nozomi C18000 digital press; showtime at Orora; the BCS Boxer is ideal for e-commerce applications.
way to let Orora’s customers drive the company’s direction into the future. “Why is Orora investing in innovation? It’s about helping our customers grow their business, so we’re investing in these sorts of technologies to give them a leg up,” he said. ■
Brian Lowe will be speaking about Orora’s digital strategy at Print21+PKN LIVE on 3 August in Sydney. For more information, see pages 16-19.