Projects

Future Printing Trends

Identification of Future Printing Industry Trends

Background

Current status of field

Total paper and board production in the U.S. in 2001 was almost 90 million tons, with the largest segment in terms of tonnage (27% of the total) being printing/writing papers (Paperloop 2002). Uncoated freesheet (UCFS) makes up the largest segment of the printing/writing paper sector - almost 13 million tons/year, with the largest single end use in office reprographics (Paperloop 2002). Other key segments of the U.S. industry include (1) the other three major categories of printing/writing papers - uncoated groundwood, coated groundwood, and coated freesheet, (2) unbleached kraft paperboard (23% of the total) which includes linerboard - where the fastest growing component is in the graphics packaging area, (3) bleached paperboard (consumer packaging) (6%) and (4) newsprint (7%) - where excellent press runnability and print quality (color and advertising) are essential (Paperloop (2002)). Hence, the majority of paper and board products - and essentially all of the higher end grades - in the U.S. have key product quality criteria linked directly to the printing industry.
The electrophotographic printing process accounts for an estimated 5.2 million tons of printing paper in 2003 or about 12% of the total tons of printing paper consumed. (GAMIS 2003). The domestic digital market is second only to inkjet printing in growth outlook, with a projected 2.8% annual increase in demand during 2003 to 2008 in coated and uncoated freesheet. Within this segment, the demand for full color digital printing is predicted to have an annual compounded growth rate of ~20% (Hamilton 2002). Currently about 26% of this volume is premium cut size and 68% is standard cut size.
Overall print advertisement has declined by about 8% from 54% in 1991 to 46% 2002. However, the need for more effective advertising is supporting demand growth in personalized printed materials, such as direct mail pieces and transactional statement inserts. In this market segment, growing print volumes supporting targeted marketing campaigns are enabled by emerging variable data printing technologies.
As variable data streams are merged with static information inside complex print management systems, the technical demands on papers are higher than ever before:

o Trends in the printing industry are placing ever more stringent cost and quality requirements on coated and uncoated paper and board substrates, to compete against digital media. Also, new press equipment capabilities for enhanced set-up and quality control in combination with high volume printing place new constraints on the consumables (ink, paper, additives, plate), resulting in increased emphasis on improved sheet properties (Pineaux (2000)).

o Print jams can compromise the integrity of an entire variable data print job, making runnability in the press a key criterion for grade selection. Paper grades must be formulated specifically to withstand the rigors of high speed transport mechanisms, duplexing, high fuser temperatures and the charging characteristics related to advances in toner technologies. Additionally, some variable data jobs such as transactional printing require the digital printing of variable data onto static fields previously printed using conventional offset lithographic technology. This puts stringent demands on the paper which is exposed to moisture and heat in offset printers, followed by one or more charging and fusing cycles in digital presses. At the same time, customer expectations of print quality are higher, and many digital press manufacturers are now claiming quality equivalence with offset printing.

o An additional confounding factor is the drive towards lower basis weight papers with adequate stiffness to run at high speeds, to produce end documents with lower shipping costs. This is important as postal rates continue to climb.

o Digital printing's drive toward higher dot-per-inch requirements in conjunction with faster printing speeds places increased emphasis on improved sheet properties including uniformity (formation; decreased variability), smoothness, and stiffness (Lim (1997)).

o In markets where digital printing is finding strength, office, governmental and financial statements, these consumers are demanding an increased use of recycled fiber content in end products. This factor needs to be comprehended in the context of other performance criteria. Staples and Office Depot are requiring increases from 10% to 30% in recycled fiber content in printing papers. Increased recycled fiber content in printing paper applications places more stringent requirements on the remaining virgin fiber (higher strength and bonding ability, higher brightness, less dirt, higher uniformity, increased amenability for recycling without property loss) to cost effectively make paper of at least equal quality because of the lower quality recycled fibers. Also, increased recycled fiber content (or other cost reduction approaches like decreased paper basis weight or increasing use of filler) reduces sheet stiffness which adversely affects print runnability of coated paper and paperboard (Kim-Habermehl (2000)).

o Consumer demands are challenging printers and printer manufacturers to develop more recycle-friendly inks and printers that work well with these changing paper substrates. Another consumer-driven initiative is the recent environmentally related wood procurement policy announced by Home Depot (forest certification related to best management practices). This policy and related environmental and cost pressures are challenging the paper industry to produce papers from an improved wood supply grown on a smaller land base.

o In some high speed presses coated grades can be used to a limited extent only in specially designed paper drawers. High volume digital presses have found applications in both in-plant and print service provider segments. In both of these developing segments a broadening of paper grades will open up new value-added solutions to end user customers.

Purpose

It is critical to identify the crossover issues relating future printing industry trends with paper and board requirements. Paper producers need to take into consideration the needs and roles of both current and future printing technologies. Printers, printer manufacturers and design engineers need to consider future improvements in the wood fiber supply and in papermaking processes leading to enhanced paper properties (Lim (1997)). For example, there is a need for improved sheet structure characterization and control during manufacture for enhanced dimensional stability and image quality in electrophotographic printing. Primary avenues for cost reduction breakthroughs, product quality improvements, and environmental enhancements lay in advances in both printing and papermaking technologies and in biotechnology - as it pertains to the wood fiber in the paper substrata.

Conventional paper measurement techniques are well defined, but the extent to which these properties need to be improved to add value needs to be identified and quantified. Understanding of future consumer needs, new market opportunities and acceptance of modified papers for printing will be directly linked to improvements both in the paper substrate and in the print quality. Data that quantifies the impact of changes in the paper substrate and in printing will provide an important benchmark with which to understand the properties that customer's value.

A response to these printing trends and paper industry cost pressures is available in terms of the forest raw material supply- both in terms of market pulp availability and future biotechnological advances. Over the last 15-20 years the U. S. raw material supply has changed from older trees harvested from "natural" resources to recycled fiber and trees harvested primarily from agriculturally grown (improved) trees - driven by a shrinking land base and competition from lower cost countries nearer the equator (NCFA (2003); Peter et al (2001)). Improved growth traits coupled with intensive tree farm management techniques have led to dramatic increases in productivity of harvestable wood at an earlier age.

Also, the expansion of pulp production in the faster growing southern hemisphere regions has resulted in a significant shift in market pulp origin and pulp characteristics from the Norscan countries (US, Canada, Norway, Finland, Sweden) to Latin and South America and Asia (Lehtonen). Future pulp supply (eucalyptus in Brazil and mixed hardwoods in Indonesia; possible planting of softwood species in tropical regions) and genetic engineering have potential to broaden even further the availability and quality of pulp species (Lehtonen). This has resulted in a wide variety of new pulps with different fiber qualities and papermaking potential for both hardwoods and softwoods. Knowledge of these fiber qualities and to achieve certain performance factors would allow the papermaker to customize products for specific end uses.

Paper quality improvements that would most benefit the graphic arts and printing industries include improved dimensional stability, higher brightness, extended optical permanence, improved sheet mechanical properties including bending stiffness and surface strength, higher sheet uniformity, and improved control of ink spreading and penetration. A number of these issues, including higher brightness and bending stiffness, are areas of active research and development of genetically improved trees for commercialization (Peter (2002b)). For example, Aspen trees genetically engineered to have higher syringyl to guaiacyl lignin ratios pulp faster and after standard DED bleaching show increases of >20 ISO brightness units over normal Aspen bleached pulps (Huntley et al., (2003)). Also, improved wood and fiber quality trait development via forest tree biotechnology is linked to increases in tree growth rates for improved fiber supply economics.

This study proposes to complete a broad-based digital printing industry technological and business trend analysis over multiple paper/board grades. Simultaneously, it proposes to initiate feasibility/economic impact studies on a specific grade - UCFS - in view of its importance in printing/writing applications. At the same time, this work will develop a platform approach suitable for subsequent analysis of other grades.

Goals

A two-year proposal is described, with the following sets of research questions to be answered:
o What are constraints to (a) current digital printer performance and quality (customer needs in terms of paper demand, considering price, recyclability, and other factors) and (b) future digital printing performance (identification of industry trends, as related to substrate requirements). A better understanding of consumer needs, new market opportunities and acceptance of modified papers for printing will be directly linked to improvements both in the paper substrate and in the print quality.
o What are specific needs for substrate (paper) improvement in current printing processes? This includes identification of critical paper property requirements for advanced applications, with a specific focus on digital printing. Projected future end use requirements for different grades of printing papers include runnability, printability, information capacity, and recyclability. Evaluation will also be made of the impact of recycled fiber and filler contents in paper on uncoated freesheet (UCFS) cost structure
o What are the prioritized impacts of fiber properties (via existing market pulps and future biotechnology) and mill processing advances on improving fiber traits and pulp furnish requirements relevant to producing papers with improved performance of print systems, including higher print quality and cost? What will be the economically viable approaches examining joint impact of fiber properties and printing technology development, for improving paper properties to enhance printing performance while reducing overall costs of papermaking and printing? This includes assessment of the biological feasibility of enhancing specific relevant fiber and wood traits required for printing applications.
o What areas of research offer greatest potential benefit for the U.S. printing and papermaking industries?
o What key factors determine digital printers' demands for paper? Discrete choice econometric models, including multinomial logit and random parameters logit, are applied to identify the demand sensitivity that price, availability, supplier relationships, firm characteristics, and paper quality attributes have on demand. Importantly, these models are used to predict the impact that changes in key demand factors have upon market shares for alternative types of paper.
o What is a market structure of the digital printing industry and how is it related to economic factors of the paper industry? Firm level costs in the digital printing industry are estimated as functions of firm attributes and inputs they use. The estimated cost functions along with the estimated demand system are used to predict impact that innovation in the paper industry has on profitability of the digital printing industry.

Our goal is to provide a fundamental economic framework to evaluate possible integrated strategies of simultaneous change in the sustainable raw material supply in combination with changes in both papermaking and printing production methods.

References

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