Page 56 - Print21 November-December 2022

Packaging
Corrugated changes
It has been six years since the world’s first digital corrugated packaging press, the EFI Nozomi 18000C. Now the company is launching a new version of the innovative press, the Nozomi 14000 LED. Print21 publisher Lindy Hughson met Richard Cotterill, global sales director, Packaging, at EFI, to ask why
the company has developed the new press.
The new Nozomi 14000 LED printer is EFI’s second generation of digital corrugated printers, and fifth generation of high
productivity single-pass industrial printers. It is effectively a stripped back version of the original, with a significantly smaller footprint, its 27.5m length is 13 metres shorter than it bigger sibling, its board sizes are slightly smaller at 1.4m x 2.4m, but it has the same running speed of 75 linear metres a minute, which can be upped to 100 linear metres a minute.
It has six print units rather than seven on the 18000; CMYK plus any two from white, orange or violet. The stacker is 1.8m, boards can be up to 12mm, primer adjustment is on the fly, and there is the option
of gloss or sating finishes. Its environmental credentials are at the same level as the 18000.
Meet the needs
So why has EFI launched it? Richard Cotterill, global sales director, Packaging, at EFI has
just visited Australia to talk to potential customers, sharing the reason for the new system, and he says it is not just because they can, but rather, to meet the evolving needs of the market. He told me,
“A lot of what is driving technology and decisions is time to market. It’s becoming more important to react to the market, because the market is changing. Covid saw
the packaging market suffer an initial shock, but then demand just absolutely went through the roof, for a number of factors, including ecommerce, and much of that demand was for short-run, on-
New market imperatives driving development: Richard Cotterill, global sales director, Packaging, EFI
demand, high impact packaging, which is the Nozomi space.
“From that time customers were telling us they wanted a platform with all the benefits of the Nozomi 18000, and the speed, but they wanted more efficiency. So with the 14000 we were looking at a more compact footprint, and better OEE.”
Cotterill says that of the corrugated total addressable market, EFI estimates around
20 per cent is available for digitisation. And that's the high value, high graphic, high quality, predominantly lighter preprints. And with a total market of 250 billion square meters, that makes 50 billion square metres that according to EFI could be digital.
Huge opportunity
He says, “So the digital opportunity is huge. We've only scratched the surface. We see the continuing trends within packaging. You
have people who want to hold less packaging inventory, and they want the shorter time to market. We see pressures from inflation, a little bit of uncertainty in the next couple
of years in the market with all the macro-economic factors going on. “Then we expect big brands will
probably want to leverage that just- in-time opportunity, rather than
having to invest in large amounts
of packaging and plan campaigns a long time in advance. They will want to adopt this kind of wait and see approach. We also have e-commerce continuing to grow. Transit type packaging is also an application, as is supermarket shelf-ready packaging.”
The logic is compelling. EFI spends at least 20 per cent of its revenue
on R+D, and it listens closely to
its customers. Its annual Connect user group event in Las Vegas was the biggest in the industry, and provides a two-way communication channel. Cotterill says, “We take our customers’ feedback, and we apply that into future development. The Nozomi 14000 is a classic example.”
Drivers
Cotterrill says Australia and New Zealand have the same drivers as the rest of the world. He points to social media, where influencers are using the unboxing experience and looking for likes to grow their own presence on social media. He says, “Packaging made in a way that enhances that unboxing experience is becoming more popular and that will tend to be shorter run. Personalised packaging is certainly one of the key drivers of digital adoption. The bright colours that you can achieve with the UV LED, with high colour saturation, the personalisation, they meet the need.”
According to Cotterill Australia and New Zealand have a significant amount of work litho laminated or flexo printed that is well suited for conversion to digital, and he says the new Nozomi 14000 isn’t just for the giants of packaging like Opal.
“The market all around is changing rapidly, with paradigm shifts taking place before our
eyes, and corrugated packaging
is certainly part of that.” Change always leads to opportunity, EFI says the new technology it is developing, including the Nozomi 14000 LED, has been launched to enable astute businesses to capitalise on those opportunities. 21
EFI Nozomi: High levels of colour saturation with LED UV
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“We've only scratched the surface.
We see the continuing trends within packaging. You have people who want to hold less packaging inventory, and they want the shorter time to market.”