MEX, Switzerland—In the countdown to drupa 2024, the world’s leading trade fair for print technologies, BOBST has paused to review some of the key themes and topics that are shaping the package print and converting industry beginning by considering its own industry vision – and whether it will become a widespread reality by show time.
In 2020, BOBST debuted its industry vision of “shaping the future of the packaging world,” with connectivity, digitalization, automation and sustainability as its pillars. Since then, the world has faced an unprecedented pandemic, global conflicts, and extraordinary pressures on the industry due to various factors including the global economy, global supply chains and resource shortages.
Meanwhile, brand owners and converters are under more pressure than ever from changing market expectations. They face many challenges, like shorter time-to-market, smaller lot sizes and the need to build consistency between physical and online sales. It’s a fast-moving environment, but for BOBST, the vision has remained stable and consistent throughout. If anything, global events in recent years have reinforced the approach. As it looks ahead to drupa 2024, its vision is continuing to progress at pace. What does it mean for the industry as a whole?
Until now, the packaging value chain has remained very fragmented, which causes too many errors and too much waste in the operations of printers and converters. BOBST’s vision is supporting this transformation by moving the industry from a mechanical to a digital world and from manufacturing machines to process solutions along the entire workflow. Together with clients, it wants to transform the packaging value chain from a series of isolated silos to a connected end-to-end overview.
At the heart of this transformation is BOBST Connect, a constantly evolving, cloud-based digital platform that enhances and improves packaging productivity. BOBST Connect brings data and digital services together in one fully connected platform, with BOBST machine insights and expertise built-in, enabling overview and orchestration of the production process. BOBST Connect is constantly evolving, so it serves customers both now and in the future.
At the same time, BOBST is shaping the industry in each segment–labels, flexible packaging, folding carton and corrugated board–to ensure end-to-end connected workflows and continuous innovation in an ever-changing environment. It gains insights to sustainably supports customers to answer the current and future consumer needs–and responds to the challenges of brand owners, retailers and e-tailers across a flexible and agile workflow.
So, what can be expected in 2024? The journey on the path will continue to gather pace. Eventually, all the machines and tooling will “talk” to each other, seamlessly transmitting data through a cloud-based platform orchestrating the entire production process with quality control systems. Packaging professionals are already seeing this, with an increased interest in data usage from PDF to twin PDF, job recipe, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and using best information throughout the production workflow, end to end. For companies who embrace this approach, across the whole production workflow, more fact-based and timely decisions will be made, and higher productivity, higher efficiency and lower waste will be a reality.
BOBST will continue to act as a strategic partner for its customers. A new offer in 2024 is BOBST Application Management, a hands-on innovative consulting service, which is designed for the needs of converters and brand owners. Through BOBST Application Management, customers can receive guidance on technologies, raw materials, processes and business cases along the entire packaging value chain. BOBST’s vision is becoming reality, despite external challenges of recent years. By drupa 2024, even more proof points will demonstrate its impact.