New Packaging Survey

GHENT, BELGIUM – January 19, 2021 – The Ghent Workgroup is involved in the creation of best practices and standards for many graphic arts workflows. Specifically for the packaging market segment, Ghent Workgroup has received feedback that the production of complex packaging pieces might still require additional communication in order for those pieces to be produced correctly. This survey is meant to gage that need, without trying to sort out any of the details at this time. The answers will help judge how big this problem might be and whether it is something where Ghent Workgroup could help the industry.

One of the main goals of the Ghent workgroup is to standardize processes in the printing industry. This started off with standards related to the actual artwork used in the printing process. However, producing printed material sometimes involves more than just printing, and so Ghent Workgroup also started creating standards and user manuals to help communicate that information.

Frank Vyncke, Cloudflow Development Manager at HYBRID Software and active member of the GWG Packaging SubCommittee  states “We noticed an evolution where we see that printing can include more than one printing pass, either because part of the artwork is fixed and part is variable, or because some very special opaque layers that are needed.

Before we spend time and effort on this niche market, we need to know if there is value for enough end users in such a standard. That’s why we created this survey to check if there is a broad enough user base that would benefit from such a standard.”

The survey is intended for all people working in the printing industry that handle artwork requiring specific instructions to be printed correctly. If you are a part of the design team, part of the pre-press team, team leader, etc, we invite you to go fill in the survey.

The results will be used to evaluate the need for a standard addressing such complex printing. And if there is a need, to potentially ask more detailed questions so that the standard can cover the real needs of the market.

Frank Vyncke: “In all my years in the packing printing supplier business, I have seen designs evolve from simple packages, towards high-end designs, printing on all kind of substrates, with special pre-post treatment. Cost reduction also stays a driving factor to change production strategies. When I joined the Ghent Work Group, I was immediately enthusiastic when I learned they were considering paying attention to write a standard to support these complex printing setups. And now it is time to decide if it is really a worthy effort to make such a standard, and which markets need it the most, so that we can verify that whatever we decide to do helps those markets forward.”