Zund UK and Inca Digital have announced a new innovation-based partnership that sees both companies working together to offer customers in the signage, graphics, and packaging industries fully automated print, cut, and robotic offload workflow solutions. As part of the Screen Graphic Solutions group, Inca Digital is a leading manufacturer of inkjet printers and automation solutions. Zund is a globally respected manufacturer of digital cutting equipment for a wide variety of materials.
The collaboration should enable customers to fully benefit from a complete workflow solution from prepress automation, cloud-based set-up, print job completion, and direct to cut finishing. As mentioned by the companies, apart from providing end-to-end inkjet printing, cutting and creasing using the Inca printers and the Zund digital cutters, the partnership will deliver automation for material handling using robots. The automation is critical to streamlining the production of large and rigid materials that the Inca can print on, and the Zund cutting, creasing, and grooving tables can finish.
“This innovative partnership is very important to the industry and we are pleased that our collaboration will allow our customers to experience a unique, high-end print and cut workflow,” says Dean Ashworth, Sales & Marketing manager of Zund UK. “We are excited to partner with Zund to offer innovative solutions tailored to our customer needs,” said Matt Brooks, head of Products & Solutions at Inca Digital.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
