Gallus celebrates centenary with ‘industry hub’ initiative

Gallus has celebrated its 100th anniversary by opening the Gallus Experience Center at the company’s historic home in St Gallen, Switzerland.

Gallus CEO Dario Urbinati says the Experience Center is designed to ‘foster collaboration to drive innovation and sustainability.’

‘Whether you are a manufacturer, supplier, converter, printer or brand, you are invited to use the new facility to explore ideas, test and develop new technologies, and teach and experience a technological ecosystem.’

Gallus is also using the facility to showcase its range of digital, hybrid and flexo presses along with Cloud-based software solutions.

Opening the facility, Heidelberg CEO Dr Ludwin Monz,
comments, ‘As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Gallus, Heidelberg is delighted to stand alongside the Gallus team this week – united, as one group.’

Monz pointed out that labels and packaging now represent 50 percent of Heidelberg group sales.

‘The new digital and automated solutions we see introduced by Gallus today play an important role in the future of Heidelberg,’ Monz continues. ‘As a result, Gallus is an important pillar within the company’s growth strategy, and we’re more committed than ever to its long-term future.’

Heidelberg sees annual growth of over 2 percent in global package print volumes, making this the strongest growth area in the printing industry.

‘Digital printing technology used in label production offers some of the greatest growth opportunities in the printing industry,’ says Monz. ‘One-third of all labels worldwide are already printed digitally today. Digital printing is thus driving change in this promising market segment, with inkjet growth of around 6 percent a year. Heidelberg intends to expand its position here with the Gallus One.’

Meta trends
In his address, Urbinati focused on the wider trends driving the growth of digital print and automation in the label market.

He identified the label industry’s ‘pain points’ as labor shortages, increasing input costs, non-negotiable sustainability targets and increasing consolidation among converters and suppliers.

Skilled labor shortages, says Urbinati, are here to stay. ‘Within a decade we will have retired the largest generation ever, the baby boomers, and will lose its knowhow, skills, experience and capital.’

At the same time, birth rates are declining globally and big tech and the service industries are absorbing the Gen X and Y workers coming onto the market. Young workers are also rejecting the commuting and shift work patterns which have formed the bedrock of traditional factory organization.

Immigration is no longer an answer for developed countries as the same demographic trends are affecting the countries of origin, says Urbinati.

Taking these trends together, there will be less labor available for the industrial sector and the situation will only get worse going forward.

‘So with human intervention now a bottleneck in the production chain, automation and interconnectivity
turn from a cost saving into a necessity for industry survival. The current business strategy for manufacturers and converters is no longer sustainable,’ says Urbinati.

‘The Gallus Experience Center exists to help the industry move toward a complete digital transformation. This is not just about an inkjet press, but a new, integrated way to think about our industry - a complete Cloud-based integration including conventional equipment. And this needs a new way to calculate cost – total cost of ownership. This will be measured by increased sustainability, which means less waste and energy consumption, and by the Integration of software and hardware using APIs. Considering demographic change, we can then make our industry sexy and competitive with the service sector.’

Urbinati stressed that the Gallus Experience Center is an initiative for the entire industry, including Gallus’ competitors. ‘We want the whole industry to participate in this process. We already have more than 50 partner companies’.

Esko, for example, has a facility on-site to work on seamless integration with the Heidelberg digital ecosystem. The company has installed a CDI Crystal 4835 flexo plate imager alongside Asahi’s Kasei latest
water-wash plate processor (nominated for a Label Industry Sustainability Award).

Frank Kropp, head of R&D at Heidelberg, emphasized the group’s strong partnership with Gallus. Heidelberg is providing deep expertise in industrial digital printing and drying technology along with a worldwide support ecosystem, Prinect workflow and the new customer portal.

Kropp said the ultimate goal of both companies is ‘autonomous printing where the boundaries between the machine control and the workflow are dissolved’.

In practice, this means the Digital Front End (DFE) of the press is connected over the Cloud to an IOT (Internet of Things) network. This makes possible a range of services including remote press monitoring,
predictive maintenance, automated color management, substrate qualification and AI/machine learning to support the user with optimal parameters for running the equipment.

Kropp announced a new customer portal to be launched in October which combines these capabilities into one platform.

The portal brings together all the current digital services and software products offered by Heidelberg. This
includes performance monitoring, predictive maintenance, workflow and job management and purchase of consumables and parts. Gallus will be integrated into the portal at a future point.

Idea exchange
Adding to the exchange of ideas at the Gallus centenary event was a presentation from AI expert and consultant Katie King, who looked at where AI is being deployed, its potential and its limitations. Despite much gloom-mongering, it appears AI is following the same pattern as previous industrial revolutions, making some roles redundant while creating different roles further up the value chain.

The key use of AI, says King, is to analyze Big Data, both historical and in real-time, and present actionable options to operators and management teams.

AI had massively sped up the development of Covid vaccines, for example, by being able to spot patterns
that human analysis alone would never have seen.

King also warned of AI’s limitations: it does not know ‘the truth’, it cannot make creative decisions and it is dependent upon the limitations of the dataset it is trained on.

Retail expert Jack Strattem delivered some fascinating insights into consumer behaviors that ultimately impact the labels and packaging industries.

Firstly, post-Covid consumers are showing a marked preference to use bricks and mortar shops if they know – by interacting online - a product is definitely in stock.

Similarly, consumers value speed and convenience, which both rely on agile supply chains, but at the same time appreciate ‘slow delivery’ – for example enjoying the unboxing/wrapping experience or help in setting a product up.

Secondly, there is a preference for spending on luxury goods, with consumers compensating by using discount retailers or cutting their spending elsewhere.

Thirdly, consumers want sustainability but are not prepared to pay extra for it. ‘So sustainability needs to be built in, but at zero extra cost,’ says Stratten.

Covid has had other interesting side effects on consumer behavior. ‘For example, the QR code was pretty much dead before Covid. But suddenly every restaurant was printing them on their menus to order food. Now consumers understand how this works and QR codes are ubiquitous.’

Stratten concludes that a lively interactive mix of online and offline is the future for retailing, with consumers less brand loyal and more open to innovations that make them feel valued.

‘And more brands want to go direct to consumers – often in partnership with physical shops - using personalized packaging and smart, connected printing.’

The Gallus One digital press can be seen at Labelexpo Europe 2023. For more information, visit Labelexpo Europe 2023 website.