The future of industrial printing: more on-demand, more tailor-made

Rapid transformations in the workplace mean corporate printing systems also have to change up a gear. But printing in the future may hold big opportunities

In industrial fields, printing – and in particular printing related to product documentation – is a real “system”, composed of procedures, software and devices. It’s a system which touches many areas, involving both corporate functions (design, development, marketing, sales and support divisions, and administration) and external elements (suppliers/customers, technologies, infrastructure).

Despite this, companies do not always give enough attention to how they manage the entire information supply chain – printing processes in particular. Understanding the financial impact of optimising workflow and all other processes related to printing content can deliver significant value and contribute to building your competitive advantage, essential in an era dominated by speed, digitalisation and globalisation.

The industrial printing sector has suffered in recent downturns more than most, with the most serious of these the stoppage imposed on companies by the pandemic. However, according to several reports based on forecasts from sector experts (such as those from Smithers, ASSOIT and drupa, which include the views of all the printing world, from service providers for companies to those working in packaging), at a global level the sector is in good health. Investments are lined up for 2023 and optimism is high for a year when the real recovery is predicted to begin. Obviously regional differences apply (the war in Europe is affecting procurement, costs and medium to long-term strategy), but the key economic indicators point to a faster moving future. And in an environment already clearly heading in a more fluid direction (in terms of workplaces, devices and data access, strategy and management), recent events have merely accelerated existing trends, with a transformation towards smarter processes in printing too.

Holding the key to innovation and prospects for the sector is Printing 4.0, which determines standards and best practices by incorporating a number of founding principles from Industry 4.0. Chief among these is the integration of data with electric and printed documents through redefining printing systems as digital touchpoints. The Smithers report mentioned above envisages growth in work for PSPs (print-service providers); they will be asked to provide increasingly tailor-made services, with low volumes and frequent requests, workflows featuring automation, format and target-based customisation, print jobs carried out through many more devices (mobile in particular) and interoperability between facilities and management systems, all with lower operating costs. Faced with the need to provide personalised output in lower quantities, quality will increasingly be the differentiating factor: from the concept of limited editions to the idea of real “works” of printing, products will take on ever greater value. They may, for example, be printed on higher quality and sustainable paper and – paradoxically – it will be digitalisation that provides the means for them to become more unique and artisanal.

Digitalisation and online communication will also mean that printing requests themselves will contain optimised process information based on timeframe, cost and location-related criteria. This evolution will be driven by the growth of two elements: machine learning and cloud printing, and the interaction between the two. Cloud printing has been a reality for several years, and its benefits are already clear. Machine learning, on the other hand, increasingly integrated into customers’ and PSPs’ devices, will enable machines themselves to know what to include in a document and how it should look. In broad terms, we’re moving towards predictive solutions, with hoped-for efficiency improvements in the systems themselves.

Another area where boundaries are being explored, and which is closely related to IoT and how content and workflow management is expanding, is cybersecurity. This is an area where budgets are predicted to grow significantly (and not only for printing requirements). Equally important for the future of printing will be eco- sustainability, in terms of energy, materials and anti-waste practices.

STAR7 is investing significant resources in developing this sweet spot, combining agile and on-demand printing with automation and sustainability. Customers’ specific requirements are the starting point when establishing the best solutions. And, now especially, thanks to our Integrale7 approach, STAR7’s professionals can help any company make the best strategic, technical and logistical choices – not just in printing but across the board.

If we’re talking about the future, then we have to talk about Web3. The metaverse is still some way off existing as it has been imagined, but we are sure of one thing: the physical printing of a document will not take place there. However, this “new world” could hold several possibilities for the printing sector. Above all, it may become an environment that can be used to develop and optimise pre-production phases, perhaps making them more agile – from managing information to creating leaner and more integrated process and preparing assets more effectively through design, simulation, sharing and personalisation. In addition, if documents, reports and manuals are not paper-based, they can benefit from interactive and augmented content (audio, NFTs...), with genuine layers of information whose appearance will take the form most suitable to the user, use or objective. There are those who suggest that the metaverse’s parallel reality could, at least initially, give rise to the creation and distribution of content that in the real world could be censored or blocked. While this prospect may not relate directly to industrial printing, it is still good news for the circulation of information.

The near-term future then is encouraging for the printing sector, provided that companies are adept at understanding in advance the transformations in the workplace, technology and society. As we are already seeing, significant benefits will come from automation and machine learning: as a recent book by Daniel Susskind (A World Without Work, 2020) suggests, the much-feared invasion of machines, which could gradually eliminate jobs, is a prospect that in reality should also lead to new roles for humans through what he terms the “complementary force”: that is, the rise of new professional skills that can meet the new requirements of the labour market. And that includes the industrial printing sector, for example in areas such as information security or the need for increasingly green processes and technologies.