Automation has emerged as one of the top trends in label manufacturing. As companies grapple with staffing shortages, the ability to accomplish more with less is paramount. This topic was front and center at the recent TLMI Annual Meeting, as members discussed their experiences with new technology and how it’s improved their operations.

Ken Brown, product and business development manager, Bobst, moderated a discussion with three leading label converters. Blue Label’s Andrew Boyd, Northern Label’s Sean Murray, and KDV Label’s Keith Walz all shared their experiences with automation, citing how the technology has been utilized at their companies.

“Everything today is about doing more with less and how you eliminate steps,” noted Brown. “How do I reduce steps, touchpoints, errors in production, time? Technology certainly plays a big role in that.”

Automation is often present in numerous functional areas. These include ERP and MRP estimating, SCR, prepress, job output to production, back-office automation, and more. From a press standpoint, automation removes steps, increases throughput, provides inspection, reduces waste, and closes loops.

Digital landscape

Automation is also inherently present with digital and hybrid label printing technology. Based on data from Smithers, digital technologies are expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.4% from 2022-2032 in value of produced output. Meanwhile, digital inkjet is will grow by 7.4% in that same period. Electrophotography is growing at a 1.2% CAGR, with most of that growth in the flexible packaging and folding carton segments.

“Every year we’re getting better and better as runs are getting smaller and smaller,” explained Boyd. “The biggest bottlenecks are up front. Even if it’s a small job, it still needs all the administration that a full flexo job has. Up front production can be streamlined, and when you’re doing hundreds of jobs a week that’s key in an all-digital environment.

“For us, we work with CERM and it’s about understanding all the administration that goes on,” added Boyd. “Have you gone through all the steps? One percent automation is still better than zero automation. It’s about baby steps and finding opportunities for automation. It starts with an MIS and identifying what processes you can eliminate.”

For Northern Label, a Canadian converter, the presence of automation allows for continued growth with a small staff. The entire company has benefited from changes to the order entry process.

“The technology and communication is much more sophisticated with our digital and hybrid presses,” stated Murray. “We’re probably 30-40% of our way there. We might never get all the way there, but it’s about using automation where you can.

“We were a flexo house up until 2012,” continued Murray. “We were setting up for three hours to run 800 feet, and the Toronto market is highly competitive. Then we stepped into the digital world to recapture that margin so we didn’t have to walk away from accounts. We added a digital press in 2017. The biggest challenge is labor, and on the flexo side it takes a long time to train an operator and we just couldn’t hire people. Hybrid is where I started looking in 2021, and it took us three years but we finally found a partner. In January we installed a Bobst hybrid press with three flexo stations. And the impact has been incredible. We’ve shut down flexo equipment and one of our digital presses, and we’ve grown by 8%.”

Modern flexography

Automation is not limited to digital printing, though. The most modern flexo presses have become automated, as well. “Even with flexo presses you’re seeing plenty of automation, so it’s a little less important what the print technology is,” remarked Boyd. “Working with ABG and adding flexo capabilities for foiling, it’s all about adding capabilities for your customers. There are regions that can get really low on labor, so you have to be able to maximize what you have running job to job to job. You need to maximize saleable print on every MSI. It’s about challenging your OEMs and even yourselves to how we can maximize our runs.”

“It’s amazing what you can do with flexo today,” added Brown.

The next frontier

The next frontier will be AI, and label companies are already experimenting with the possibilities.

“Excellent data collection is crucial – getting API links and live data,” said Boyd. “Now you can get information right off the press, which is amazing. We collect mountains of data about what’s happening on the press, and what to do with that data is another question. If you don’t know what questions to ask, it doesn’t matter. I think that will be an interesting area for AI. It’s highlighting areas that are creating issues. That will be a great next step for a lot of us, to take this data and make it actionable. It’s something I’m clearly excited about, and we’ll see a lot of interesting developments.”

Part of this technological transition will include staffing employees who are familiar with the newest advancements, too. “We’re trying to transform our culture to a continuous improvement manufacturer,” noted Walz. “We want to bring people in who can bring input and challenge us where it doesn’t make sense, and that’s been a big emphasis over the last 12 months.”

“I want to bring in a younger generation that’s more savvy than me and can work with software,” added Murray. “We have a new hire and she’s working really hard with implementing Hybrid Software. I haven’t used AI yet, but I’m inspired to use AI so we’re going to look at ways of utilizing it.”