The Potential of Digital Print in the Packaging Sector

Peter Addington

Xaar
316 Science Park, Cambridge CB4 0XR, United Kingdom
Tel: 44 1223 423663  Fax:
Email peter.addington@xaar.com

Biography

Having graduated in Food Technology in 1969, Peter recognised the error of his ways and moved into packaging a year later. In 1977 he became Packaging Development Manager at Schweppes and this was followed by two years as Projects Director, Schweppes France, before moving to Express Foods as Group Packaging Adviser in 1985. In 1988 he moved into consultancy, founded his own consultancy two years later specialising in all aspects of packaging and became a Fellow of the U.K. Institute of Packaging in 1992. Peter joined Xaar plc in January 2004 specifically to identify and develop inkjet opportunities within the packaging arena.

Company Profile

Xaar, which was founded in 1990 and is based in Cambridge U.K, is the global leader in the design and manufacture of industrial digital print-heads. The company has 300 employees, two manufacturing sites (in Sweden and the U.K.), a turn-over of £43million in 2006, and holds some 750 patents on piezoelectric inkjet print-head technology and its industrial applications.

The most recent print-head, the Xaar 1001, which was launched to great acclaim in 2007, has been specifically designed for single-pass production-line printing making it highly suitable for inclusion in pharmaceutical packing lines.

Abstract

The use of digital print in the packaging arena is still fairly limited, but there are strong indications that this is beginning to change and that over the next five years there will be a significant move to the on-line digital printing of packaging.

PIRA (UK packaging research body) predicts that the growth in digital print will be due to increasing demands for shorter print runs, pack customisation and cost reduction, and they forecast that up to 50% of packaging, dependent on type, could be digitally printed by 2012.

There are a number of competing technologies within the digital print area each of which has particular strengths and weaknesses and the presentation will outline these differences.
The early reluctance to introduce digital print on to production lines centred on concerns about print quality and system reliability, but with improvements in the basic technology and the development of new drop-on-demand inkjet print-head designs, these traditional barriers are disappearing. 

The presentation will bring delegates up-to-date on these developments and will highlight the advantages of introducing digital print into pharmaceutical packing lines.