Unmasking 2024: Pivotal Shifts and Innovative Solutions for Labels & Packaging Manufacturing

While being stable and resilient, the labels and packaging industry has been navigating a period of turbulence in recent years. Label and package converters face persistent global pressures, such as supply chain disruption, energy crises, and dwindling availability of talent, as they approach a tipping point for the printed packaging industry in 2024.

Global Supply Pressures Bring Local Opportunities

Supply chain fragility, amplified by geopolitical tensions, has cast doubt on the reliability of distant sources. Meanwhile rising freight costs are driving much of manufacturing and production to move closer to home. These global forces are enabling converters to take a more local approach to business, ultimately removing the need for expensive and unsustainable transportation. But in addition to transport challenges, the sourcing of substrates generated tension in the overall supply chain. Packaging converters are finding new suppliers to adjust production lines adding additional complexity to the supply chain.

It also goes without saying, the labels and packaging industry is no exception to the scarcity of skilled labor. For the majority, little is known about the packaging industry and the perception is that it’s an archaic sector that negatively impacts the environment. Today, the digital and AI revolution presents opportunities for packaging manufacturers to offer new careers, upskilling opportunities for existing employees, and reshape the industry’s image to focus on innovation and attract fresh talent.

Energy Crisis and Sustainability Pave the Way

With the overall production cost, including the rising price of raw materials, impacting the final price of finished goods and services, implementing energy-saving solutions such as solar panels and UV lamps, converters could make significant cost and energy savings, whilst simultaneously playing a positive role in implementing sustainable production practices. I would be remiss not to mention my belief that transitioning from flexo to digital can also help label and package converters capture cost-and-energy efficiencies.

Equally important, of course, is quality control and automation as they lead to waste reduction. As organizations accelerate sustainability initiatives, label and package manufacturers will be taking a holistic approach to workflow processes and business operations to ensure these converters are delivering end-to-end solutions with a lower environmental impact. That’s exactly why Kindler Label Service recently implemented the new HP Indigo 25K, aligning HP’s sustainable commitments and technology with its corporate DNA; together, they deliver on its responsibility towards people and nature.

Regulation meanwhile will increasingly dictate more transparency from the industry. We can surely expect significant actions towards a more circular economy in the industry by 2025.

Digital and Automation Shape the Future

As we look to 2024, you may be thinking "the digitization of labelling is nothing new," but we see the potential growth of some sectors – particularly the folding carton industry, which is yet to be convinced – but with digitalization’s ability to optimize the entire production floor, operational efficiencies become streamlined and ultimately, a more profitable business. It’s in this context that digitalization, standardization, and automation have become elevated on the print and packaging industry agenda.

We’re already seeing that PSPs leveraging digital print technology, including the HP Indigo 100K Digital Press, have become empowered to competitively deliver short-run printed packaging jobs. These converters yield newfound prowess — consistently delivering high quality print jobs helped by the operational and sustainable benefits of highly automated workflows. Digitally presses open new doors of innovation, drive improvements from concept to conclusion, and we expect to see many packaging converters to follow suit this year.

In the year ahead, expect converters to weave connectivity between systems, automating print processes through cloud-based solutions. Data analysis and AI will power productivity boosts, but the digital revolution won’t be a simple “remove and replace” process, because effective digital is not just a digital press.

Digital technologies can intelligently complement conventional technologies, starting in research and development. Adopting the right press for the job will be critical. High value short runs delivered by digital presses such as the HP Indigo 6K, large labels and sleeves printed by wider press such as the HP Indigo 200K, and flexo used at its sweet spot — longer runs and jobs with complex converting. Expect a hybrid approach to continue.

Managing growth, addressing complex and demanding packaging formats, overcoming environmental constraints, implementing new regulations, attracting new talent to the industry, developing new business models such as web-to-pack, and welcoming new entrants from the commercial printing world is the new packaging landscape.

After decades of growth in a stable and predictable environment, the labels and packaging converting and printing industry is at a major tipping point. At events such as drupa 2024 and PRINTING United Expo, expect automation and sustainability to be front and center of the digital transformation narrative.