Agenda

Brittany Onslow, Senior Manager of Production, Smithers

Sean will share the latest Smithers data on digital label and packaging markets in value and print volume, together with interesting examples of campaigns I have come across. It will highlight the arrival of new technology and growing installations in corrugated, cartons, flexibles, metal, glass and rigid plastics.

Technology update, with important new developments that will be shown at drupa.
Will cover changes in brand strategy, how they can take advantage of the technology to change supply chains.
Longer term forecasts and perspectives, in 2031 the world will be very different!
Sean Smyth | Print Consultant, Smithers

In the opening session of Digital Print for Packaging, leading brand owners will discuss the changing landscape of packaging, and how digital printing is providing new opportunities to leave a lasting impression on consumers.
Moderator: Michael Miller, Manager, Global Product Innovation – Digital Decoration, Ball Corporation
 

Attendees at this session will hear how ePac, established in 2016, has disrupted the flexible packaging industry with 15 manufacturing plants located across the country and abroad. Based entirely on HP’s Indigo 20000 digital press, ePac’s unique value proposition offers brands of all sizes the ability to go to market faster, run more promotions, rapidly make changes, create great shelf appeal, economically run multi-SKU orders, and order to demand. 
Carl Joachim | Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, ePac Flexible Packaging

Speaker and Abstract to come!

Speaker and Abstract to come!

AI is flooding industries across the world, improving design, speed, product development, presenting new opportunities in quality and more. This session will showcase how AI is helping the design cycle for digital print on packaging.

Moderator: David France, Packaging Research Fellow, ConAgra
 

A demonstration of how A.I. technology can be used to significantly speed up digital print lead times by automating various critical stages of the package design lifecycle from creative concept all the way through to print readiness.
Marc Crouch | CEO & Founder, Firedrop

It’s unsustainable to rely on human decision-making for complex job planning. The skills needed to estimate and impose jobs by hand are being outpaced by the increased pressures of emerging technologies. The next generation of preproduction staff needs new tools to predict with speed and reliability how best to produce a job. These tools need to precisely model production environments, leverage IoT for accurate data collection, and rely on computers, not humans, to synthesize results. Tilia Labs develops true Artificial Intelligence software and Tyler Thompson, M.S. in Computer Science from University of Denver, and director of technologies at Tilia Labs, is a thought-leader in AI.
Tyler Thompson | Director of Technologies, Tilia Labs

Package design and strategy shouldn’t be an afterthought. After all, it’s key to delivering, protecting, and authenticating your products, not just reinforcing your brand identity. 
Emerging technologies in packaging, such as NFC, ioT, and AR will enable greater efficiency in managing, moving, and delivering your product to the consumer; we’ll take a look at how they can help transform your workflow from product ideation through end-consumer fulfillment.
We’ll explore how to integrate strategic package technology into your product workflow in new and exciting ways. Learn to maximize your effectiveness in designing, creating, warehousing, and filling your packaging, while reducing shipping costs and increasing customer engagement. 

Audience takeaways

• How to implement a product development workflow that incorporates packaging, fulfillment, and delivery to maximize sustainability and flexibility?
• How to test packaging strategies without breaking the bank on product profitability
• Approaches to scale up packaging along with product growth for increased margin, including industry-certified testing (ISTA/ASTM/APASS) and comparison of production methods 
• How to build packaging technology into smart warehousing, enhanced delivery tracking, and product authentication/registration

Karen Goeller | Product Manager, Packlane

This session introduces you to Domino, and takes a closer look at a digital corrugated printing solution that is engineered and manufactured to transform your business.
Whether you are a converter or a brand owner, certain common denominators apply.  You want to run your business to make more money, maximize productivity & efficiency, and minimize cost & consumption. 
If you are a brand owner, you are most likely increasing the number of versions, varieties, sizes, and flavors of products you produce to gain and maintain consumer mindshare.  You may even be adding personalization to your packaging for greater consumer and brand engagement.  And you want to minimize the amount of inventory on hand, while having your corrugated packaging supplier provide quick turnaround, on-demand.
If you are a converter, you are most likely seeing an upward trajectory in this shorter run work, which challenges conventional printing methods in the amount of time it takes for start-up, changeovers, and running production.  You want to ensure that you are addressing the needs of your brand owner customers, yet you need to run your business successfully. 
Enter Domino X630i, the digital corrugated press designed to increase productivity, throughput, capacity, and efficiency while reducing make-ready, ink, energy consumption and total cost of ownership for converters. AND meet the demands of brand owners.  
Single pass, water-based digital inkjet printing that is Swiss Ordinance & Nestle approved.  600 x 600 dpi.  No pre-coating required, print directly onto coated or uncoated stocks.  No stopping between print jobs. Speed up to 230 feet (70m) per minute. Uses less ink and power consumption than competing technologies. Environmentally friendly. From transit packaging to display work and everything in-between, allows for a wide range of print options to be considered across the brand offering.  Increase margins, improve workflow, and grow your sales opportunities. The Domino X630i addresses the needs of converters and brand owners.  Attend this session to learn more! 
Bill Myers | Marketing Manager, Domino Digital Printing North America

During session IV attendees have the opportunity to choose between two tracks of industry-leading content. In this track, attendees will address how new workflows specifically for packaging, labels, and corrugated are streamlining production while also reducing the production time.  

Moderator: Liz Logue, Senior Director Corporate Business Development, EFI

In this session we will explore the power of combining technologies like Artificial Intelligence with advanced workflows, rich content management, color management, and just-in-time file delivery. Technologies like G5 and Cloud platforms are changing the landscape for Brands, Convertors, Pre-media providers and marketing technology firms. This is very likely to completely reshape the packaging industry. Innovators are thriving with niché and even mainstream offerings, and companies that are clinging to the value propositions of yester-year are gradually slipping into the worst of places…. irrelevance
Stephen Kaufman | Chief Product Officer, Esko

During this session, you will learn how the efficient production of digital preprint, from printing through corrugation, has shifted the economics of high-graphics corrugated manufacturing.
Trevor Schroeder | Product Marketing & Business Development Manager, HP PageWide Industrial Corrugated Preprint Solutions

• Customer Acquisition and Estimating
• Order Acquisition and Order Processing
• Scheduling and constraints management
• Color Control and Consistency to Brand Colors
• Production and Tracking
• Shipping and Invoicing

Nick Benkovich | Vice President, Portfolio Product Management, efi

During session IV attendees have the opportunity to choose between two tracks of industry-leading content. In this track, attendees will learn that color management can have its own set of challenges – especially when it comes to color matching and pigments. This session will address some of the struggles with color matching and different material bases when using digital print.
Moderator: Tom Molamphy, Sales & Technology Manager North America – Inkjet, Siegwerk

This presentation will provide an overview of pigments used for printing. The focus will be on the special requirements that have been created by the transition from analog to digital printing.
Will Dowden | Technical Sales Manager, Printing, Clariant Plastics and Coatings

Panelist Include: Fujifilm, Global Inkjet Systems, Avery Dennison, and Michelman
Moderator: Tom Molamphy, Sales & Technology Manager – Inkjet, Siegwerk

This panel will address:

• Food contact for digitally printed liners " - Direct food contact – how paper could help to reduce migrations?
• Access of digital print to new customized packaging applications?
• What are the trends towards UV vs Water based ink? Is UV a solution for the future or not?
• Food safety and compliance

Confirmed panelists:

• James Gill, Account Director, Fujifilm
• Debbie Thorp, Business Development Manager, Global Inkjet Systems
• Paul Lender, Business Development Manager – Digital, Label & Graphic Materials, North America, Avery Dennison
• Susan Bailey, Business Development Manager, Digital and Specialty Printing, Michelman

Abstract to come!
 
Brian Fellows | VP of Sales and Director, Digital Golden West Packaging Group

Cannabis is a unique and growing category, but is using typical images and stereotypes the way to go? Understanding the consumer is key in any product category and we’ll explore what can be learned from traditional CPG. Best practices, successful case studies from other categories, and how to stand out in an already crowded category, are just a few of the areas we’ll cover in this fast paced session. And hopefully we’ll have some time for Q&A
Tom Newmaster | Partner, Relationship Builder, FORCEpkg

New initiatives and regulations are fuelling a change in efforts in sustainable packaging. More and more brands and suppliers are stressing compliance to satisfy an uptick in consumer demand—and many are pledging big overall changes in materials by 2025. While “Clean Beauty” continues to grow market share, “Clean Packaging” is following right behind. What are suppliers offering in this regard? While not every company has the ability to instantly go zero-waste, how can brands tell a compelling sustainability story?
 
Today, sustainable packaging concepts made of paper, cardboard and paperboard often represent the opposite of fancy packaging: a rather matt varnish, brown or earthy cardboard or a structured surface can sometimes appear less premium. However, packaging finished with metallic
Alexis Tonneau | Project Manager, Kurz

This session will provide case studies on direct2shape, flexible packaging and labels. This session will also highlight design challenges that were overcome, lessons learned and more.
Moderator: Sean Smyth, Consultant, Smithers

Tonejet's first end to end beverage can printing system went live at the end of 2019. The system is helping craft brewers who need short runs delivered in hours and major brands who need digital packaging targeted at events and consumer niches. It is also helping the environment - by removing the need for plastic shrink sleeves, labels and the recycling headaches that come with them. In this presentation we will discuss the economic, environmental and brand activation benefits of direct to pack digital decoration, and tell the story of our partnership with lead-customer Solucan leading to the first full production implementation of our technology.
Rob Day | CEO, Tonejet

Looking at the pros and cons of integrating an inline digital printer into an analogue flexo line including some of the speed bumps to integrating the software and hardware
James Gill | Account Director, Fujifilm Dimatix

Additional Speaker: Ed Zumbiel, Zumbiel Packaging

Kodak and Zumbiel Packaging will provide insights gained from the implementation of the Prosper 6000S inkjet Digital press.  Kodak Continuous inkjet is different than other DOD inkjet platforms on the market, capable high speed digital inkjet printing at speeds of 650 fpm, with food safe, water based pigment inks, for folding carton applications.  We will explain the technology challenges of printing at speed printing, the benefits of pre coating, print and drying, that have been resolved with the Prosper 6000S.
This session will highlight the real economic and business benefits of digital production and the manufacturing flexibility that has been achieved to respond to brand needs for sustainable growth and the pressure to increase speed to market.  Ed Zumbiel will provide real “in-market” case examples of eCommerce, new products launches and versioned packaging, that accelerated Zumbiel Packaging capabilities to increase the brand value and grow new services.
Rick Mazur | WW Director - Market Development - Packaging/Labels - Enterprise Inkjet Division, Kodak, USA

As a global leader in the development of digital inkjet technology, Memjet brings beautiful precision, simplicity, and affordability to OEM printing solutions around the globe. The company’s three print technology platforms serve the benchtop production, light production, and heavy production print markets.
At this presentation, attendees will learn how Memjet’s modular printing technologies are creating new capabilities for the production of digitally printed flexible packaging. The presentation will discuss:

• Benefits of water-based inks for flexible packaging
• Three ways to enable flexible film printing with water-based inks
• How to balance equipment complexity and cost of inkjet printing for flexible media
• How these options roll out to the supply chain

Attendees will come away with a new understanding of how to achieve cost-effective, high-quality production of flexible packaging. 
Donald Allred | VP Packaging, Memjet

With the growing desire for sustainable packaging, speakers in this session will discuss what they are doing to make their packaging more sustainable, and how their designs are incorporating more innovations.

Moderator: Liz Logue, Senior Director Corporate Business Development, EFI
 

Consumer brands today cannot afford to engage in massive recalls from mislabeling and other manufacturing errors. Discarding entire product runs is costly, wasteful and impacts a brand’s reputation. Manufacturing mishaps are compelling brands to explore alternatives to traditional visual 2D codes for component parts matching and other behind-the-scenes processes.

A new alternative is an imperceptible, serialized barcode for digital printing technologies, which helps brands accurately track and authentic problem products, without having to resort to blind recalls. Digimarc Barcode is a machine-readable code that carries the same data as Data Matrix or other symbologies. It is repeated across the entire surface of a package, label or clamshell, as well as each component part, promoting more reliable scanning on the inspection line.
Discover how to digitally-print and QC Digimarc Barcode and begin offering your premedia and consumer brand clients serialized packaging and labels that can help them reduce product waste, promote sustainability and save money.
Jay Sperry | Platform Evangelist, Digimarc

Panelists coming soon!

Abstract and Speaker to come!

Digital printing makes it easier to customize packaging and add personalization at a faster rate. The growing trend of wanting personalized or custom packaging has created an opportunity for brand marketing to get consumers to identify with a brand. [People relate to stories and when products can be presented in a story-like way, they become irresistible to consumers.]
Moderator: Trevor Schroeder, Product Marketing & Business Development, HP

Choosing digital print for your next corrugated box or display project is just one part of fully leveraging this exciting technology. Automated digital print workflows allow brands to easily order and manage personalized packaging projects that engage consumers in a one-to-one conversation.
Richard Brown | President, The BoxMaker and Fantastapack.com

Speaker and Abstract to come!

Speaker and Abstract to come!

Designing for digital print can bring its own challenges including color matching and sometimes several rounds of changes. This session will address these challenges, including lessons learned and how designers, inks and packaging companies can work together to better the design process.
Moderator: Tom Molamphy, Sales & Technology Manager, North America, Siegwerk
 

Throw on your bibs as we dig into the juicy opportunities and challenges of digital printing in the realm of food and beverage packaging. We'll discuss the ways you can ensure the integrity of design from the very first concept thru to production, as well as best practices working with your press-man-or-woman-or person. Now, doesn't that sound delicious?
Valerie Hawks | Production Lead, Interact Boulder

Abstract and Speaker to come!

Speaker and Abstract to come!