Page 36 - Print21 Jan-Feb 2022

Revolution in Print
Digital corrugated print
The joint venture business from industry heavyweights Koenig & Bauer and Durst has given the world
premiere to its VariJET 106 digital carton press, one of several new solutions for packaging printing.
Digital carton and corrugated printing is perhaps the area of print that is seeing the biggest levels of developer
investment, with a stack of major vendors pouring R+D funds into new presses, all aiming to enable printers to capitalise on what they are sure will be a rapidly growing sector – short run, on-demand, variable-data, fibre-based packaging.
According to research agency Smithers, digital carton printing
will be one of the primary growth areas for packaging in the next
five years, as run lengths shorten, with the number of skus and the amount of versioning increasing,
and as fibre-based packaging meets the need from brands to be seen by consumers to be moving away from plastic materials.
Two industry heavyweights, Koenig & Bauer and Durst, created
a new joint venture company three years ago, specifically to develop print solutions for this new area, looking to implement the mechanical engineering of the offset giant with the digital prowess of Durst.
Matt Ashman, managing director of Durst Oceania said, "The joint venture between KBA and Durst is a stroke of genius for both companies, but most of all for our wider customer base. Both companies have a rich historyinthemarket,andstrengths
First result
of Koenig & Bauer Durst JV: New VariJET 106 digital packaging press
in different areas of the technologies involved in bringing to market what the market has been asking for.”
The VariJET 106 is the first result of the JV. It is designed to deliver digital print in folding carton and corrugated. The press has just had its world premiere, at a special VIP event in Germany.
Robert Stabler, managing director of the business said, “Thanks to the development teams from Koenig
& Bauer and Durst for making our VariJET 106 customer event so successful today.
“Biggest thanks of course go to our customers who made the day with their insights into the folding carton market. We are more excited than ever about the opportunities for digital printing in the packaging segment.
“We’re really excited about the opportunities with the VariJet 106, because our customers are telling us that the compelling trends we’re seeing elsewhere in packaging – shorter run lengths and the need to be more agile – are also happening in folded cartons.”
The VariJET 106 uses technology from the two companies, and prints inuptosevencolourswithCYMKand
orange, violet and green. It uses Fujifilm Diamatix Samba printheads, which print at 1200x1200dpi with press
with water-based inks, as the company believes they are best suited for food packaging, with the importance likely to heighten due to issues around food security and food provenance.
Print speed of the B1 sheet is 5500sph.
Meanwhile, testing of the 6000sph CorruJet 170 inkjet press has, according to Stabler, “just completed”. The press is now fully-launched. Stabler said, “It is for customers that have exacting quality requirements. It produces exceptional print quality on a broad range of media.”
The four-colour CorruJet 170 handles media from 1mm to 8mm thick, with a maximum sheet size of 1.7x1.3m. It also has a flexo coating unit.
The new joint venture has also brought the Durst Delta SPC 130 single-pass sheetfed inkjet press for corrugated into the fold, which it is enhancing. It runs at up to 120m/min and is designed to run non-stop, with a maximum format of 1.3x2.8m, with a digital priming unit for uncoated media.
Stabler said all the Koenig & Bauer joint venture print solutions would be designed to run non-stop around the clock, as this was “the market demand and the bedrock of our design.” 21
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“Shorter run lengths and the need to be more agile are also happening in folded cartons” – Robert Stabler, Koenig & Bauer Durst