Click on the Italian Printing & Converting Machinery Industry

Click on the Italian Printing & Converting Machinery Industry

Dr. Guido Corbella
President
ACIMGA – Italian Manufacturers Association of Machinery for the Graphic, Converting and Paper Industry

　　I am very glad and honoured to be here today in this important event, representing ACIMGA, the Italian Association of Manufacturers of Machinery for the Graphic, Converting and Printing Industry.

　　I took part in the first edition of the Forum for the Development of Printing Industry, celebrated in May 2005, when the economic situation was completely different: in 2005 the slowdown affected only some countries, the traditional leaders of the economical development, while the growth was outstanding in other areas (i.e. China, India).

　　Today the economic situation in large part of the world is not good, it is very critical, characterized by a kind of spreading recession and until now any sign of changes, improvement, is not noticeable.

　　So we realize that also the printing industry is strongly touched by this current economic turmoil.

　　Globally the printing market is steady and not really dynamic.

　　Furthermore most printers have the feeling that their business is structurally changing under the influence of powerful driver: printed documents vs. internet and new media, economy of scale and global supply to satisfy some markets, industrial organisation, investment strategy and technological evolution, etc.

　　Just to face this challenging time, ACIMGA founded last year, together with ASSOGRAFICI (the Italian Printing and Paper Converting Industries Association), FederGrafica that is the Federation of Technologies, Paper, Printing and Converting Associations.

　　It represents both the Italian manufactures of machinery and both the Italian users of this machinery, which is the Italian printing and converting industries.

　　The aim of this Federation is to join efforts and carry out together some activities.

　　We believe that this way is just the better way to face this particular difficult economic period and to perceive the trend of technologies and the new demands of the market.

　　THE WORLD REPRESENTED BY FEDERGRAFICA

　　ACIMGA – ITALIAN PRINTING AND CONVERTING MACHINERY INDUSTRY

　　The Italian industry of machinery for graphic, converting and printing counts about 150 industrial-sized companies with a workforce of about 7,200 employees.

　　This industry displays the typical characteristics of advanced Italian mechanics: a few large companies and many medium-size and small firms that have made technological and productive specialisation and flexibility their strongest feature.

　　These firms are interconnected in a dense network of sub-contractors also able to guarantee high quality work.

　　This Italian industry has always been strongly inclined toward exports (more than 75% is the contribution of exports to total turnover) and at present more than 100 countries buy machinery from Italy.

　　Just thank to this export-oriented trend, the economic performance in 2008 was still good: the turnover increased about 3% and exports rose almost 10%.

　　In this slide you can see the major destination countries in 2008 (January-November 2008 in comparison with the same period of 2007).

　　So China climbed to third place (from sixth one) on the list of the main buyers of Italian machines.

　　In particular + 68.5% was the growth rate of our exports to this country; the trend has been positive since 2005.

　　Today Italian industry is the fourth foreign supplier of China, after Germany, Japan and Taiwan, and the gap between Italian share and Taiwan share is very slight.

　　With reference to the various sub-sectors, we can note that about 66% of Italian exports to China are printing and converting machines and almost 25% are paper cardboard processing machines, in which Italy is the world leader.

　　ASSOGRAFICI – ITALIAN PRINTING AND CONVERTING INDUSTRY

　　As regards the users, we have in Italy 23,000 companies in printing and converting sectors with a total of 184,000 employees, producing a turnover of around 26 billion $.

　　In particular the present structure of Italian printing industry is mainly based on many small and medium size companies, who have always combined creativity with industrial production; but there are even few large printing complex of worldwide renown.

　　According to the latest survey, this industry counts about 19,300, employing 121,000 employees, with a turnover of 16 billion $.

　　It is one of the most important industries in Europe: it is the 3rd producer with a share of 13% of EU printing industry turnover (after Germany and UK).

　　The leading Italian products are in advertising printed matters, art books, catalogues and periodicals.

　　The total export business shows a slight decrease, however the trend is positive for adverting printed products and catalogues.

　　Also the Italian converting industry is one of the main sectors in Europe: it is the 2nd converting industry, after Germany, with a share of 15% of EU paper converting industry turnover.

　　The companies of this industry are about 4,000, with 63,000 employees and a turnover of 10 billion $.

　　The leading Italian products are corrugated cardboard, printed packages and wallpapers.

　　In the last years, the export business is continuously rising.

　　Just different is the trend in this last period. The present no-good economic situation has strongly affected also the printing and converting industry.

　　According to the last date available and to a survey by Istituto CREA Furio Cicogna of L. Bocconi University, after the year 2008 that saw again a slow down in printing industry and a slight negative trend in converting industry, the majority of Italian printers are more optimistic or, we can say, less pessimistic on the future trend of converting industry than on the trend of printing sector.　

　　With reference to outlet market, again the area, where the printing and converting industry can offer encouraging perspectives of recovery trend and increment in the next years, will be the area of packaging.

　　ECONOMICAL ASPECTS

　　Printing and converting for packaging is a leading component of the large Graphic Arts industry system, which represents over the 46% of the whole global printing business, for an estimate grand total of about 325 billions dollars.

　　In respect to this industry, many factors influence the demand for printed products and packaging, including demographics, the overall economy, industrial growth, globalization and environmental concerns.

　　Population projections worldwide are for growth, with Asia, Africa and Latin America experiencing the largest increase. Collectively, these areas eventually will represent the greatest concentrations of people with a new, direct need for food and non food packaging and other printed products.

　　Furthermore globalization is having a profound impact on the major players in the industry and is expanding opportunities for many companies (in the traditional leader countries and also in the emerging ones).

　　Environmental issues are becoming increasingly important, particularly at governmental levels. Emission and waste management controls already largely have been implemented by the industry and consumers, but in Europe the EU is moving into a new phase of environmental legislation. The printing and packaging industries are significantly impacted by the requirements for reduced paper and packaging waste end ever-tightening recycling and re-use targets.

　　Every type of machines is involved: rotogravure, flexography, offset, silk-screen printing, pad printing, hot/cold foil printing and digital printing, in its different kinds.
So in the most recent times most of the machines, materials and accessories needed for the packaging production had undergone a considerable technological evolution as well as a considerable increase in volume and value sales.

　　From a technical point of view the most evident aspects of this evolution are about the increase in speed of the machines and the general performance improvement, with the introduction of computerized technological devices for activation, control and work change procedures.

　　So it is possible to offer better quality, high availability or flexibility and product performances, while reducing operational costs.

　　According to official figures supplied by the Italian Packaging Institute, the world market for packaging now absorbs a total production worth 520 billion $, 30% of which in Asia, 25.5% in North America and 24.5% in Western Europe.
Italy is one of the biggest world producer of packaging, with sales in the range of 32.3 billion $, equal to 6.2% of world production.

　　The Italian packaging industry incorporates 7060 companies employing around 106,340 people; the industry’s sales account for 2.7% of Italy’s entire industrial manufacturing and 1.6% of its GNP.

　　To serve this huge growing industry, the manufactures of machinery, equipment and materials are investing large financial and human energies resulting in an outstanding evolution of the printing and converting technology.

　　TECHNICAL ASPECTS AND EVOLUTION

　　The competition between the printing systems is still very active and on the quality point of view, all printing systems are consistently improving their performances.

　　One of the factors affecting all printing business, including packaging printing and converting, is the general trend to reduce run lengths. Short runs are now more and more the normal way to operate for all type of systems and presses. Even gravure, which maintains its dominant position in the long runs, is now offering new technical solutions to compete in short runs with other printing systems.

　　In fact, new generation gravure presses are equipped with removable trolleys in the printing units and fully automatic trolley change and cylinder washing to allow minimum changeover time with maximum simplicity. Electronic shaft driving systems are replacing conventional mechanical driving.

　　Flexography has rapidly grown thanks to the new photopolymer plates accepting finer screen rulings, to the CI printing presses for perfect register, and also thanks to the advanced Computer-to-Digital Flexo systems, offering better tonal rendition and minimizing dot gain on the press.

　　Flexography has progressed over the past 40 years from a simple process that was once regarded as being suitable only for printing sacks, and the like, to the stage where it today successfully challenges offset, gravure, letterpress and screen printing in the packaging and label industries.

　　Medium and large web flexo presses of advanced design are available in fully automatic configuration with sleeve printing system and robotic devices for sleeve replacing. Gearless driving with continuous repeat is now a standard solution for many CI presses, as well as for few in-line presses.

　　An other segment which is growing over any expectation is Label Printing where the technology is offering very advanced solutions involving all printing systems.

　　In the cardboard box production, conventional sheet fed offset is facing a strong competition by post-print flexo in line with slotter-stitching-glueing units.

　　DIGITAL PRINTING has simplified the workflow from prepress digital data directly to the printing units.

　　In fact, Digital Printing eliminates numerous mechanical steps in the conventional printing process, including making films, colour proofs, manually stripping the pieces together and making plates. Instead of cutting and folding printed "signatures" to put the pages in order, software sorts them in memory and prints them in the correct sequence.

　　Without entering the matter of different technical solutions available, we have to consider digital printing as a successful new system able to compete with all conventional printing systems, although, until now, digital printer systems do not compete with high-speed newspaper and magazine presses. In particular today digital printing is in competition with offset.

　　The two major peculiar features of digital printing are “print on demand” and “personalisation”.

　　The “print on demand” and “personalisation” by a digital system is more effective and less expensive than any other printing conventional gravure, or offset or, even, flexo.

　　Print runs can be personalized for targeted marketing or sales applications.

　　These concepts are well accepted by the communication market and even answer to the emerging needs of the packaging market.

　　So the package printing will profit of the benefits resulting from the technological evolution of the digital age.

　　We can see that just in the last years the digital printing has shown a good increment in total sales and, in spite of the bad economic outlook, it still offers perspectives of increment in the next years.

　　According to a survey of Infotrends, the prospect of annual growth for digital printing, in the space of three years (2009-2011), is +4% in volume and + 9% in turnover.

　　The fastest growing segment of digital printing will be “print on demand “: the perspectives of increase are around +7%.

　　Another segment with a good expectation is Inkjet printing for DTP computer environment and for large size posters, decorations and signs.

　　CONCLUSIONS

　　With this overview of the present developments in the printing and converting industry, I tried to give you a synthetic picture of the on going transformations in this field to meet the changing needs of a market influenced by many factors (mass consumers, economy, globalization, environmental concerns, etc.).

　　The changing needs of the market require that machines and materials manufacturers and printers/converters find new innovative solutions.

　　Surely the new digital technologies, using more and more powerful computers and sophisticate softwares, are helping us in increasing the efficiency of our production processes, without compromising the quality, but actually improving the enterprise profitability as much as possible.

　　And yet I would like to bring your attention to the fact that technology is only a part of the system in which we work where its complement is the human being, who today is not anymore manually busy, but who is highly involved in operational and managing choices which require high professional and decision making skills.

　　Many thanks for your attention!