A new report by What They Think, Chicago, Ill., USA, released this week, titled Tech Trends for Labels and Packaging: the Year in Review, discussed new technologies that were allowing businesses to create entire boxes with digital technology for printing as well as box folding on site. But the message came through loud and clear that conventional presses and the papermaking businesses managing them are still the most effective and economical way to create boxes, not to mention the fastest ever. In Nicholasville, Ky., packaging printer WestRock set a pair of records in folding carton production on a KBA Rapida 164 press. It produced 9 million sheets in a single month and 357,000 sheets in a single day.

Laid end to end, 9 million sheets would span 142,500 football fields or match three cross-country flights from New York to Los Angeles. The conventional production story isn’t exclusively about long runs. Press automation, sophisticated digital workflows, and onboard quality monitoring systems are making offset and flexo equipment faster to set up and quicker to change over from job to job. These features, along with greatly reduced percentages of start-up waste, turn late-model conventional presses into options for production in smaller volumes as well.