Corrugated board printers are realizing that conventional corrugated printing is failing to meet the demands of modern marketing in terms of time to market, short-runs, special applications, and targeted marketing. That's bad enough, but there is also an inexorable downward pressure on margins. Demands for quality by international brands push up costs, while the global market can mean that jobs will be printed elsewhere.

These demands are forcing packaging printers and converters to seek out new methods of production, in almost all cases with a digital basis.

Expanding the Potential through Technology
The launch of the world's first industrial digital inkjet press for corrugated applications, known as the Scitex Vision CORjet, is causing producers of packaging and POP display products to move into high-quality digital inkjet production and offer the benefits of quality, speed, fully automated digital workflow, and cost-effectiveness. Around the world, users of the CORjet have excited existing customers and attracted many new ones with the power of digital technology.

The CORjet is a complete system comprising its own RIP software unit and system controller, automatic loader and unloader, print engine, and drying unit.

Using the same standard format artwork files as used for digital flexo or litho production, the CORjet prints with four- or six-color configurations using environmentally friendly water-based inks developed and produced by Scitex Vision and approved for use in food packaging by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The system prints at actual throughput of 150m² per hour in production mode and 90m² at high-quality mode. The CORjet handles automatically sheets in sizes of up to 160cm x 320cm in thicknesses of up to 10mm. For each color there is a 512 nozzle print head using piezoelectric drop-on-demand technology at speeds of 30,000 drops per second per nozzle. With the ability to produce high-quality graphics on a variety of corrugated sheets, foam boards, Coroplast, PVCs, and more; the CORjet expands the potential for novelty and creativity.

 Reaping the Benefits
The benefits of short-run, on-demand, variable data production were appreciated readily by CORjet's early adopters, for example, Carmel Container Systems, of Caesarea, Israel; Menasha Display, of Mequon, WI, USA; Wertheimer Box, Chicago, IL, USA; Santorroman, Spain; Ondalba, Italy, and more.

Carmel's customers had been requesting short-run corrugated products, but production was prohibitively expensive. The installation of the CORjet enabled cost-effective runs as low as single copies, and short to medium-run reprints of full-run flexo jobs.

At Menasha Display, an early request was for 176 additional POP displays for Coca-Cola's Harry Potter Holiday promotion. According to Menasha Display GM Greg Hauber, "In the past, the minimum re-order would have been in the hundreds, but using the CORjet we were able to print the 176 displays and have them ready within a week."

Hauber maintains, "A whole new mind-set is opening that allows us to capitalize on regional and retail account-specific promotional opportunities."

The creation of value-added, digitally produced corrugated and board products has also been taken up by Chicago-based Wertheimer Box Corporation. Using the CORjet, Wertheimer Box was able to produce a range of sample packaging solutions for a new range of chilli sauces in a matter of days. Wertheimer Box's ability to do this ensured the product was taken up for distribution. Not only did the CORjet win the business for the food company, but it won the subsequent long lithographic production run for Wertheimer.

Experiences like this one led Wertheimer Box to establish its Digital Point-of-Purchase Solutions business unit in September 2003. Wertheimer Box president, Jay Wertheimer, cites the advantages of digital production as offering new products to customers; developing the ability to be a "digital trade house" for other independent producers; and expanding its customer base by working directly with advertising and marketing agencies.

Half a world away at Visy Displays, a division of Visy Industries, Victoria, Australia, the experience is much the same. A major producer of recycled clay coated corrugated board, Visy successfully tested its CORjet on that substrate and was impressed with the compatibility of its water-based inks.

Visy Displays' work for the CORjet also centers on POP and packaging prototypes, where Visy GM Sybil Cline feels the CORjet has given the converter a competitive edge in the area of new product development.

High-quality inkjet production with the Scitex Vision CORjet opens new business opportunities in a traditional market that was in danger of becoming staid. It enables the printing of products with high added value while delivering a rapid return on investment. In fact, the CORjet is revitalizing the whole way in which corrugated and rigid POP printing is being considered.