Packly rewrites the rules of online high-end packaging production
With 48,000 users, the Italian web-to-pack completes its digital workflow with the second Highcon Euclid, a Scodix Ultra, and a prototype version of the HP Indigo 90K
Since its debut in 2015, Packly has been in the spotlight of both conventional and online printers and converters. Many people are observing the Italian startup with growing curiosity and envy, trying to follow its moves, grasp its secrets, and establish relationships and agreements with them.
The reason for such interest lies in the own mission of Packly, born as the first online service for parametric packaging design. From the beginning, Packly allowed inexperienced graphic designers, printers, and small packaging converters to create folding carton cases and boxes, freely vary the thickness of the substrate, and obtain faithful 3D renderings and millimeter precision die-cut templates. While developing its design engine, Packly progressively increased its options to purchase packaging in small, medium, and large quantities. Aservice made possible by its close cooperation with Pringraf, the packaging company founded in the mid-1990s by the Prioriello brothers, which spun off Packly.
Pringraf and Packly distinguished themselves, respectively, for adopting some of the most innovative digital printing and converting technologies — in 2014, Pringraf was the world’s first user of Highcon Euclid II — and for rapid growth in the number of online subscribers in the five continents.
The year 2020 opened with further transition, which will see Packly introduce embellishment among the options, and corrugated cardboard among the substrates. For its part, Pringraf installed a second Highcon Euclid, a modified version of the Scodix Ultra, and the world’s first HP Indigo 90K: a web-fed press optimized to print folding carton.
To experience Packly’s new production ecosystem and personally follow the production of a special insert made for Italia Publishers, we visited the Pringraf headquarters and met its co-founders and owners, Giuseppe and Roberto Prioriello, along with their closest collaborators, Mena Prioriello and Imma Romano.
Packaging, offline and online
Based in the mountains of Molise, the second smallest and least populated region of Italy, Pringraf has struggled to create a sustainable and scalable business model in an area rich in excellence but poor in relevant clients. In over 20 years of packaging converting, the company has invested in technologies and processes capable of supporting high-volume and small batches for the food and pharmaceutical industry. Pringraf, whose production layout has always been compact and ultra-efficient, uses Koenig & Bauer and BOBST’s most advanced analog technologies for printing and converting.
The transformation into a digital environment began in 2014 with the introduction of Highcon Euclid II to reduce the time and cost of die-cutting in just-in-time jobs. The birth of Packly, the following year, gave the impulse to a further digitalization, which resulted in the introduction of a digital toner-based press and, in 2018, two Zünd S3 cutting tables, adopted to support the growing flow of micro-orders generated by Packly. Then, in 2019, it was time for the definitive digital turning point.
Offset and digital printing, (apparently) irreconcilable worlds
B1- and B2-format digital presses for packaging printing are a handful, and almost all are sheet-fed and use inkjet technology. Eager to make a breakthrough move, Pringraf began analyzing them in 2016, concluding that no system in the market offered the right mix of flexibility, sheet size, quality, and economy to complement offset technology, and replace it where appropriate.
The breakthrough came in the summer of 2018, while observing an HP Indigo 20000 in action. Web-fed, with a print width of 740 mm and a maximum repeat length of 1,100 mm, the HP platform was designed for flexible packaging and B1 commercial applications. Its benefits included accurate reproduction of images, text, and spot colors; deep, uniform blacks; perfect registration; and high overall productivity. But, the HP Indigo 20000 could not feed substrates thicker than 250 microns and is therefore incompatible with folding cartons.
The Pringraf owners did not give up and pushed the HP Indigo’s R&D team to take up the challenge. Thus, a joint development and integration project was born, and gave life to an original and unique machine.
“B1 digital presses available in the market did not seem mature enough. Conversely, B2 presses were proven and stable, but at least half of our jobs are not compatible with that size. So, we bet on HP Indigo, which has a significant number of installations and consolidated imaging technology,” says Roberto Prioriello.
Digital web-fed packaging printing
At the heart of the system developed for Pringraf, baptized the HP Indigo 90K, is the 7-color HP Indigo print engine, which integrates a pretreatment unit for applying a dedicated primer, formulated to optimize ElectroInk’s adhesion on the paper. A special jumbo roll feeder — capable of handling up to 2,200 meters of 300 gsm paperboard — is installed upstream of the press, while downstream is a Grafisk Maskinfabrik buffer system, which adapts the linear speed of the printed web to the rest of the line.
The finishing process starts with the application of flood coating, performed with a TRESU chamber doctor blade unit. Packly choosed a water-based acrylic coating, which guarantees eco-sustainability and compatibility with the most stringent safety regulations. Although not certified for food contact, all products of the Italian web-to-pack are compostable and certified with TÜV Austria’s “OK compost” mark, both Home and Industrial.
The web then enters the drying module, equipped with IR lamps and blower elements.
At the end of the line, the cardboard is ready for cutting into sheets and stacking. The first operation is performed with an in-line cross cutter, which allows the web to be cut into sheets with lengths ranging from 400 mm to 1,200 mm. After cutting, the sheets are transported on an inclined platform with rubberized conveyor belts and deposited on the stacker. The proprietary converting unit, designed and built by Zandonai Albert, is also equipped with an auxiliary collecting tray, which can be used to eject both single sheets to be inspected, and any urgent job inserted on the fly in the print queue. The setup of cutting and collection modules is automatic, thanks to an optical sensor that reads special marks. The line speed can reach 40 m/min., equivalent to about 2,400 B1 sheets/hour. The job positioning on the web is performed through a proprietary algorithm, which allows optimizing the sheet size.
“By being able to create custom formats, such as 70x80 or 70x90 cm, we have drastically reduced the waste that we would have using B1 sheets,” explains Roberto Prioriello.
Quality control is performed by the HP Indigo integrated inspection system, and offline spectrophotometers.
The turning point of digital embellished packaging, in small, medium, and large quantities
Since mid-September 2020, Packly users have seen a new service appear in the portal: the embellishment of products with spot varnish and gold and silver foil, in relief. This option strengthened Packly’s position in the luxury, cosmetics, and alcoholic beverage markets.
By assigning a spot color to the graphic elements to embellish, designers can load their graphic files, and obtain an ultra-realistic three-dimensional rendering, complete with light-reflection effects on varnished and metallicized parts.
“We wanted to allow the user to get a preview of his entire project, verify its visual impact and approve it,” underlines Giuseppe Prioriello. “In the last 18 months, we have been working on a new visualization algorithm, more powerful but lighter and faster to load on any device.”
On the production front, enabling the finishing of single pieces and small quantities required the introduction of new technologies. After discarding the option of a B1 digital embellishment system, which was judged oversized due to the current volume of embellished jobs, Pringraf identified the Scodix Ultra 101 as the system suitable for its needs. However, in order not to preclude the possibility of finishing sheets beyond the B2+ size, the company asked and obtained a customization from Scodix, which increased the maximum paper size to 600x815 mm. Pringraf was also among the first in Europe to adopt the Scodix Studio Station, a digital front end that simplifies and speeds up production job processing, and makes the system capable of handling large documents with a high number of pages and multiple designs.
Flexibility and scalability to serve a world dominated by e‑commerce
Pringraf adapted its production processes to the packaging industry’s changing needs, of which Packly aims to be the leader. Emblematic is the coexistence and interoperability between offset and digital printing, between BOBST traditional die-cutting machines and Highcon and Zünd digital cutting systems.
“Depending on the substrate, size, and quantity requested, our proprietary software sends each job to a different printing or die-cutting line,” explains Roberto Prioriello. “Sometimes it’s convenient to die-cut hundreds of boxes with Zünd instead of Highcon, and when choosing between Highcon and BOBST, a breakeven of 1,500–2,000 sheets can rise to 5,000, if the setup complexity plays in favor of digital.”
The increasing performance and reliability of its digital platforms translate for Pringraf into substantial time and cost savings for setups and dies, greater repeatability, and reduced waste. An efficiency that made the company the preferred partner of small and large brands that sell online.
“Our customers want to ship their products using boxes that is durable, but also beautiful, eco-sustainable, easily reorderable, able to enrich the unboxing experience,” explains Giuseppe Prioriello. “To help them adhere to Amazon’s guidelines, we listen to them, do research and development, adopt new materials and new printing, converting and finishing technology.”
A family company that grows organically and transversally
In July 2020, Packly exceeded 48,000 active users, up by about 1,500 on a monthly basis. The users are equally divided between Italy and abroad, with Germany and Scandinavian countries at the top. The Italian web-to-pack processes and ships over 300 orders every day, from all over the world.
“We receive orders from remote places like Australia, Faroe Islands, Madagascar, Malta, and Cyprus, a trend that is partly explained by their local production, that is not always timely and qualitative,” explains Prioriello. “More and more often, however, we get orders equivalent to tens of thousands of boxes from North America, where Packly is gaining acceptance among designers and brands that demand lightning fast delivery times and accuracy to the tenth of a millimeter.”
Spending a day between production and logistics at Packly, what strikes you is the heterogeneity and diversity of orders, ranging from packages for frozen crabs and magician’s wands, to board games, DNA test kits, and food products, which sometimes are still under testing.
To satisfy such a varied user base, in 2019, Pringraf quadrupled its production site in Campochiaro (CB), constructing a 4,000-square-meter building fully air-conditioned and equipped with air treatment, heat recovery, and maintenance of predefined relative humidity values. The company is also FSC certified and has obtained the BRC Packaging level AA certification for the production of food packaging.
In order to reduce its environmental impact, Pringraf has installed new compactors for pulping both white and inked paper and activated a new 150 kW photovoltaic system (under expansion), which gives it partial energy self-sufficiency.
On the product front, from mid-October 2020, Packly will introduce E-flute cardboard as a material choice option. In just one click, the user will be able to adapt a die template created for folding carton to corrugated cardboard, provided that the size and shape of the object are compatible. To ensure the same print quality that Packly users are accustomed to, Pringraf has developed a process of laminating a single face corrugated with coated folding carton, printed with offset or the HP Indigo. This will allow Packly to approach even larger user segments.
“A traditional packaging company tends to be sectorial, to serve customers by affinity. This limits access to packaging for many users.” says Giuseppe Prioriello. “It’s nice to know that, thanks to Packly, even niche players have the opportunity to emerge, creating their first box with a few tens of euros.”
Despite the enticements of potential investors, both industrial and financial, Giuseppe and Roberto Prioriello chosen to preserve the integrity of their business project and the spirit of their family company.
“Packly is like a small child, and we want it to grow up without outside influences that could distort our philosophy and vision,” the co-founders conclude. “In a few years, perhaps, we will be ready to evaluate different options.”
With the current firepower, Pringraf is ready to meet Packly’s volume growth for the next 18 months. However, the desire to produce just-in-time packaging from 1 to 100 thousand pieces, for customers in any part of the world, has already relighted in the company the familiar unstoppable impetus toward new technology and product innovation goals.
