May 27, 2016
Lewisburg Printing’s digital powerhouse, the EFI VUTEk H2000
When the printing-packaging industry used to speak of “very large format” (VLF) press options and applications, they meant anything over 40 inches. Now, in 2016, as an increasing number of printer—packagers are investing in presses and die cutters that can handle more than double that size, yesterday’s “very large format” is looking more and more like the new “large.”
It is not a size that fits—literally or figuratively—on every shop floor. Yet those who have been able and willing to make the investment in 60- to 81-inch presses have discovered new customers, speed-to-market advantages, and economies of scale. At a time when packaging customers are installing their own smaller-format digital printers for in-house prototyping and small specialty runs, going big can give any full-service printer-packager a distinct marketing edge.
New Equipment, New Vision
“I think large-format is a great niche market,” says Kirk Kelso, vice president of sales at Lewisburg Printing Company in Tennessee. “We’ve invested well over $20 million in new equipment, and large-format is now well over 80 percent of our business. We’re selling to corrugated and display companies.”
Lewisburg’s niche grew out of an acquisition. “We bought a Nashville company in 2004 that got us into the large-format litho, top-sheet market. They had equipment, though, that was roughly 20 years old. So we decided to invest in newer technology. Today, all of our equipment is six years old or newer.”
Unlike many of its large-format peers, Lewisburg’s largest-format printer is digital, an 80-inch-wide, continuous-feed EFI VUTEk H2000 Pro.
“Three to four years ago we bought a small-format digital press to get our feet wet. Fast-forward to 2015, when we brought in this flatbed digital press that will print up to 80 inches. It can print on a wood door! The graphics are not as high-quality as offset, but we’re getting there. The real downside currently is speed to market; digital is a slower printing process. The other downside is that it’s cost-prohibitive for some customers unless they’re looking at really, really small quantities, due to the cost of the consumables. But I believe that will improve over time.”
Despite the downsides, Kelso notes, “We’ve kept our equipment fairly busy.” One of the reasons is a continued demand for larger displays and retail boxes. “You’ve probably seen the push toward the big flat-screen televisions—and they’re just getting larger and larger. They require a larger box, which requires a larger sheet to print laminate for that box. We’re seeing more of a call for the larger sheet. We’re also seeing larger displays and even corrugated boxes in the market,” Kelso says.
Lewisburg is committed to covering all the bases for its customers. “In addition to our digital solutions, we also just purchased the largest sheet-fed press in the world,” the KBA Rapida 205.
“Our philosophy has been to insource what we can with an eye on total investment, but in terms of offering our customers the best all-around solutions. The investments we’ve made in technology translate into reduced costs that we can pass along to our customers. We can output more production runs on the offset side, with higher quality. Then, on the digital side, you can shorten your runs and focus on targeted demographic markets and regions. Shorter runs give customers the ability to change their message more frequently. The digital market is here to stay and will only become more relevant.”
“We’re seeing more of a call for the larger sheet. We’re also seeing larger displays and even corrugated boxes in the market.”
— Kirk Kelso, Lewisburg Printing Company
Big-Box Needs
Los Angeles-based Superior Lithographics has been committed to large-format printing since it opened its doors more than 25 years ago, now billing itself as “California’s leading large-format packaging printer of litho labels, top sheets, and folding cartons.”
“We started as a packaging printer, not related to folding carton,” says Vice President of Sales Megan Sullivan Simmons. “We started with litho labels and top sheets for the corrugated industry, and we’ve always been a large-format provider; we’ve never had smaller jobs.
“In 2006, we decided to pursue folding carton. So we didn’t start with small-format, we adapted our folding carton into the large-format arena. For us, the best kind of work is large-volume, multiple SKUs/‘flavors.’ We have the large presses, so we can run multiple flavors on one sheet and help control sheets that way.”
Superior Lithographics occupies a unique niche in folding carton—currently about 25 percent of their business—by focusing on larger packaging rather than the typical kinds of retail-ready cartons and displays. Simmons says she believes that market will grow. “I don’t know how the corrugated folks feel about this, but there seems to be a trend toward light-weighting materials. I think we may see people start moving away from using corrugated toward folding carton in some situations. With increasing board weights, you can make a more rigid folding carton, which can then go bigger in size.”
While Simmons also acknowledges the needs of big-box stores for larger packaging solutions, her company has chosen to meet those needs through traditional offset lithography. “We went to the 81-inch press”—again, the KBA Rapida 205—“to supply the corrugated industry with larger-format litho labels.” She adds, “The press is absolutely a draw for customers. There are not that many large-format printers in our market. Customers want to take advantage of all that real estate, so they’ll put a display, a header, a base on the same sheet—for cost-effectiveness, for color consistency. Our customers try to engineer into that press.”
For now, the company is remaining firmly in the analog world regardless of press size. “Some of our customers, being corrugated converters, have put in their own digital equipment. But at this point, we don’t want to go down the digital path. We just don’t have a lot of demand for that right now.”
Meredith-Webb staff at work with the company’s KBA Rapida 205
Large-Format, Quick Turnarounds
For Kelly Webb, executive vice president of Burlington, North Carolina-based Meredith-Webb Printing Co., large-format printing is simply part of offering customers a complete printing-packaging solution, which extends all the way from in-house sheeting for corrugated customers to fulfillment to the end user.
The KBA Rapida 205
“We were originally a 40-inch shop,” Webb says. “We did a lot of point-of-sale work and convenience-store displays, that type of thing.” A little over a decade ago, he decided to explore the market for larger-format printing, consider the potential, and determine whether it would be a good fit with Meredith-Webb. It was. “We got our first 56-inch press in 2004–2005, then we went to 64-inch in 2006. Now we’ve got two 64-inches, and we’ve just installed the 81-inch”—not surprisingly, the popular KBA Rapida 205.
Webb realized that servicing large-format customers would require special attention. He brought in Account Executive Rich Fifield, who came with more than 20 years’ experience in large-format. “Now, we’re using the large-format presses for oversize packaging and display products, or to help corrugated companies maximize what they’re doing on their die cutters,” says Fifield. “If they can, they’d like to get three pieces out on a big press rather than one out on a smaller press. But these days, sometimes the packages are too large even for an 81-inch press, so they’ll go to spot labels.”
For Webb, bigger packaging means an increased emphasis on delivering the highest-quality graphics possible, which is why Meredith-Webb is currently sticking to lithography for its large-format needs. “The customer impulse is for premium graphics,” he says, including all of the ink-based bells and whistles: matte/gloss coatings, UV and aqueous inks (alone or in a combination), textured surfaces, and other “impactful additions to normal printing.”
Another Meredith-Webb hallmark is speed of delivery. “Some people focus on small-format, quick-turn,” Webb says. “We decided to approach the large-format market by having very quick turns in oversize sheets. Being able to turn the job very fast is important.”
He acknowledges, however, that large-format is a difficult niche to enter, requiring relatively new equipment—“if you have a 10-year-old press in this market, it’s impossible to compete”—and the ability to meet customer requirements for a range of formats
and enhancements. “It’s almost cost-prohibitive,” he admits.
Almost is the operative word. Depending on your current and potential customers, as well as the presence/absence of other large-format printers in your region, it may or may not be a market worth exploring. Yet for some of those who have made the large-format niche their own, the gamble has been worth the risks. As Lewisburg’s Kelso notes, “The first piece we bought paid for itself in its first job of make-ready.”
Robert Bittner is a Michigan-based freelance writer and frequent contributor to BoxScore.
