CHESTERFIELD, MO–Ben Luly is product manager at Mark Andy with 10 years of experience in the narrow web flexographic, digital, and hybrid printing industries. He has a strong background in product design and engineering, bridging voice of customer (VOC) insights with design requirements and market research, thereby ensuring market-leading products.

Luly prides himself on understanding global trends of the industry, needs of customers, and problems that need solving. In an article penned for the October edition of FLEXO, based in part on his presentation at FORUM INFOFLEX 2025, he discusses the benefits of merging digital’s flexibility with flexography’s strengthens. It appears below.

In today’s dynamic and highly competitive label and packaging market, digital printing continues to gain traction thanks to its clear advantages. It eliminates the need for plates, reduces make-ready time, and supports variable data printing, enabling mass customization at scale.

With fewer bottlenecks, jobs move through production more efficiently, while consistent color and repeatability reduce manual intervention. These strengths improve operational efficiency and at the same time appeal to younger talent drawn to digital tools and automation.    

When considering digital, it’s important to look at the different workflows available. Roll-to-roll digital workflows can be highly efficient, especially for converters handling multiple very short-run SKUs of varying shapes. For digital-only labels, without added decoration or spot colors, roll-to-roll production offers a streamlined path from print to finish. When converters already have compatible digital finishing equipment in place, these workflows are optimized—enabling faster turnaround, reduced setup costs, and minimal waste.

For converters seeking greater flexibility, hybrid presses are growing as a strategic solution. Available in a wide range of configurations, hybrids combine the strengths of digital and flexo printing, along with converting, all streamlined into one workflow. In simple terms, a hybrid press replaces the process color stations of a traditional label press with a digital engine, while retaining all other flexo and converting features.

Hybrid press manufacturers offer many of the same modular options found in conventional presses, making many label constructions possible. This flexibility allows converters to tailor hybrids to their specific production needs, optimizing throughput and profitability. Mark Andy’s   Digital Series HighSpeed 1200 is an example.

Unsurprisingly, hybrid press installations are climbing rapidly year-over-year, experiencing a 13.2 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), as noted by MarketsandMarkets research. The shift toward shorter runs, increased personalization, and SKU variety from brand owners is pushing converters toward more versatile solutions. Simultaneously, demands for faster turnaround and just-in-time (JIT) inventory management, make hybrid and digital technologies even more critical. As a result, many converters are rethinking pressroom strategies to remain competitive in this evolving landscape.

In this environment, quality is no longer a differentiator—it’s expected. Customers assume high-quality output from all suppliers. What now sets converters apart is efficiency. The longer a job takes, the higher the costs and the greater the risk of missing deadlines. Timely production has become a competitive necessity.

To meet daily goals of delivering on time, maintaining quality, and staying profitable, converters are increasingly turning to hybrid presses. Hybrid technology offers a single-pass production workflow that merges digital flexibility with the strengths of traditional flexo. By combining digital print with flexo and converting modules, hybrid presses reduce plate requirements, cut prepress labor, and minimize work-in-process inventory. This enables converters to shift more jobs to efficient hybrid workflows without sacrificing speed or quality.

If you consider the evolution of the print industry, digital was originally offered in a roll-to-roll, offline configuration. This workflow often made the most sense as digital print speeds of 49 fpm would certainly bottleneck a traditional label press. As digital printing speeds have increased with time, the print engine is no longer the bottleneck. With speeds up to 480 fpm in digital, the crossover point of a hybrid press has increased into the medium run length range. With fewer plates and minimal make-ready, jobs that once took hours to prepare can now be completed in a fraction of the time.

For example, a run of 20,000, 4-color labels can move from prepress to finished product within hours. Inline decoration accelerates this further, enabling brand owners to receive shelf-ready labels in days rather than weeks. The ability to launch products faster and secure retail space sooner can justify premium pricing for such services.

Still, today’s market presents real challenges—rising costs, labor shortages, shorter job lengths, tighter deadlines, and the need for differentiation. Eliminating waste—whether from overproduction, excess inventory, overprocessing, defects, waiting, transportation inefficiencies, or unnecessary movement—is critical to staying competitive.

Hybrid presses help address these issues by streamlining processes and improving job flexibility. Traditional flexo jobs may require multiple steps and operators to complete printing and finishing, while a hybrid press can achieve the same result in less passes with fewer labor hours and less waste. This reduces labor costs and simplifies scheduling and resource allocation. Hybrids also allow for quick pivots between jobs of varying lengths and complexities—essential in an environment driven by demand variability and customization.

To fully consider the time it takes to run a job, the converter should consider the total time involved from prepress to a finished product, along with startup and cleanup time. Examination of the total production time chart (pictured) illustrates that the roll-to-roll configuration has the lowest startup and make-ready time, however, the total time to produce is higher due to offline finishing. Flexo has the shortest time to print, however, has the highest total time, due to the lengthy make ready. In this example, the digital hybrid has the total lowest overall time to print. This ultimately increases capacity, and overall profitability.

In addition to time savings, converters evaluating hybrids often ask three basic questions: What are the optimal run lengths? How do production costs compare with flexo or digital-only? What unique value is delivered?

While answers depend on job specifics and press configuration, two benefits stand out: the ability to produce a product with less setups, and the combination of digital imaging with the robustness and versatility of traditional flexo.

Run length suitability is a bit nuanced. Hybrids can be cost-effective for short, medium, and even long runs depending on design complexity, finishing needs, and cost structure. For short runs, the lack of plates and fast changeovers reduce waste and increase responsiveness. For longer runs, integrated converting and single-pass production can offset material and labor costs, maintaining competitiveness across a broad spectrum.

One specific example of a consideration is a multi-SKU production with hybrid. Compared to flexo, hybrid printing enables variable designs without stopping to change plates. On a hybrid press, a single die make-ready is often all that’s needed for successive SKUs, allowing continuous production without image changes or delays.

Additionally, if a background is consistent across SKUs, one flexo plate can be used for all SKUs, spreading its cost over multiple runs while benefiting from lower ink costs. Flexo also ensures precise brand spot colors, a must for maintaining consistency across large product portfolios.

 Beyond speed and flexibility, hybrids expand market reach. They enable converters to serve craft, boutique, and niche markets with premium short runs, while also managing larger volume, multi-version campaigns for larger clients.

In prime labels, hybrids allow brand colors, decoration, and varnishes to be applied in one pass, ensuring precise registration, reduced waste, and increased productivity. For shrink sleeves, hybrids can reverse print with a final slip white and slit to final width in one pass.

Converters should additionally consider the types of workflows that are needed to produce labels of higher complexity.  Backside, reverse, or adhesive side printing as well as multi-layer label construction, insertions, or even high-end embellishments, such as hot stamping or tactile varnishes, can all be achieved on a hybrid press. 

 As adoption grows, converters are becoming more agile, applying lean principles, and using hybrids to optimize job routing and asset utilization. The ability to assign work based on run length, finishing requirements and turnaround, allows converters to schedule more intelligently, reduce waste, and improve margins.

To fully leverage hybrid benefits, converters should work closely with suppliers to understand configurations, capabilities, and support options, ensuring they choose the right platform for current and future needs. Whether experienced in digital or just exploring it, hybrid presses offer a scalable, future-ready solution.

Hybrid technology has become a powerful response to the changing demands of the label and packaging industry. By merging the strengths of digital and flexo in one efficient workflow, hybrids enable faster delivery, lower costs, and broader market reach. With SKU proliferation, customization, and speed-to-market continuing to shape the future, hybrid presses offer the versatility, efficiency, and competitive edge converters need to thrive.

Looking ahead, digital hybrid presses will continue to expand their market share as converters pursue faster, more flexible, and cost-effective solutions. Their single-pass capability combines digital printing with traditional flexo and finishing to meet shorter lead times, reduce waste, and manage variable jobs efficiently.

The next evolution will be automation, both in prepress software and on press hardware—further reducing make-ready times, streamlining changeovers, and increasing throughput. By minimizing manual intervention and enhancing consistency, automation will push hybrid presses to new levels of efficiency and competitiveness, positioning converters to excel in a fast-paced, ever-changing market.