Labelexpo:Wider World of Narrow Web

The narrow web converting industry is undergoing an evolution, as the full potential of in-line processing starts to dawn on converters, suppliers and - ultimately - end users.
Pressure sensitive applications will remain at the core of the narrow web industry for the foreseeable future, with growth rates around 6 per cent in Europe and in double digits in Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe and South America. But cartons and flexible packaging - the wider world of narrow web - will grow as a complement to this core.
It was long ago realized that if you could put a web of pressure-sensitive laminate through a printing and converting line, there was no reason, in theory, why you shouldn't send rolls of any material down the same line.

Converting cartons in-line - printing, embossing, foiling, cut/creasing, and sheeting, stacking in one pass - makes obvious sense. We start with rolls of cartonboard and end up with finished product at the end of the line. Short runs of high quality product delivered on-demand.

Already in the pages of Labels & Labelling, you will see the first label converters diversifying their pressure-sensitive business by shifting to carton production, where they are undercutting sheetfed suppliers on price, delivery time and run length and adding significant value.

Most significantly, end users brought up on print-buying manuals that stated cartons are ALWAYS sheetfed offset, have accepted the print and creasing quality of in-line flexo cartons. At the same time, sheetfed carton printers could see more business shifting to narrow web, and will need to consider how the technology could complement - not replace - their existing operations.

However, before moving into cartons, printers need to understand the complexities of selling cartons as well as the technical side of converting board (make no mistake, it's a steep learning curve). The demands of the primary packaging market can be radically different from supplying secondary packaging - for example in terms of cleanroom production environments.

Film
Similar comments apply to unsupported films. Up to now products like stretch wraps, shrink-wraps, sachets, pouches and flexible packaging have been converted primarily on wide web CI flexo and gravure presses. Now the fmcg brand managers come along and they want more short run work - regional promotions, sporting promotions, new product trialling multi-media tie-ins. A multi-million dollar, metre-wide 8-color press has a high hourly rate, so all the time it spends idle during makereadies for short run products is a terrible drain for any converter. These costs have also to be included in the price the end user pays.

This is where narrow web presses come into their own: producing short run/rapid turnaround batches of film packaging products. We already see a trend in the market for wide web converting houses to outsource short run work to narrow web printers. When this outsourced work reaches a certain volume, these companies could well look at installing some narrow web capacity to optimize their wider presses for longer run work.

For the label printer, the trend towards shorter runs of filmic products offers huge opportunities. Most of these products are already being produced flexo - so there is no culture gap for the end user. Moreover, the ability to convert thin films gives the label printer the opportunity to become a true 'one stop packaging shop' for their customers - offering short lead time, short runs of cartons, labels and film. And this is likely to be higher margin business, allowing label printers to lift themselves free of vicious, cost cutting commodity business.

Again, there are technical issues which need to be faced: where label laminates are pretty robust and can absorb a certain amount of 'stretch' and heat without affecting registration, unsupported films are highly sensitive to combinations of heat and stretch. This required development of presses with lighter touch tension control and heat reduction systems, allowing high quality products to be produced which match the quality of CI flexo and in some cases approach gravure quality.

Against this, wide web technology is good at adding the coatings, lacquers, primers, adhesives, etc., which are needed to produce barrier coatings, heat seal coatings, laminates, freezer packs, pouches and the like - things which narrow web may need to do more of in the future.

Secondary converting
To fully exploit the value added opportunities offered by narrow web packaging presses, converters will increasingly need to take on 'secondary converting' operations. Secondary converting means the operation after the product has been printed and converted on-line. For example, once a carton has been printed, cut, creased, sheeted and stacked, it needs to be folded and glued before it can go to the end user. If printers invest in a folder/gluer, they can retain the value added opportunities rather than contract it out to a third party.

Similarly, shrink and stretch labels need to be seamed into a sleeve before they can be applied to a container by the end user. By contracting the seaming out to a third party, the printer simply cuts into his profit margin.

Then consider pouches. There is a big move by brand owners from metal cans to pouches - think of soup and pet food, for example - and this is a sector driven by short run, high quality packaging. But you cannot simply print the pouch film or laminate and deliver that to the end user. You need to invest in a pouch-making machine and become a one stop supplier.

Conclusion
As we said at the outset, none of the above diminishes the importance of pressure sensitive labels for narrow web converters. If converters can learn to manage waste, reduce set-up times and optimise sales, administration and production planning, there are still good margins to be made.

Indeed, the wider world of narrow web takes in a whole new generation of value-added pressure sensitive products - Variable information products, industrial and electronic, security, ID, tracking and promotional labels, RFID and other 'smart' labels. All will be on show at Labelexpo Europe in September and all point the way out of the cul-de-sac of price-driven commodity labels production.