Esko: Supporting packaging heroes in today’s complex world
Esko, a Danaher company, is a global provider of integrated software and hardware solutions that digitize, automate and connect the go-to-market process of consumer goods. Esko connects people, processes and tools to meet the needs of global brands and the people who trust them.
Esko customers bring consumer products to life with accuracy, efficiency and speed. Packaging for 9 out of 10 major brands is produced by Esko customers today.
Headquartered in Gent, Belgium, Esko employs 1800 people worldwide with a unique focus on the packaging sector.
Mattias Byström, President of Esko, recently commented at the company’s annual EskoWorld users’ event in Nashville, USA, that “Packaging is a dangerous business to be in today because of the increasing macro-challenges and everyday pressures the industry faces. Thankfully there are packaging heroes in the value chain that make the difference for brands.”
From a macro challenge perspective, the packaging sector is subject to economic, social, environmental and technological shifts. From increasing globalization to new nationalistic agendas affecting global trade, the rise of the millennial consumer and their experience-driven purchasing habits, through to the evolving, highly competitive omni-channel retail environment and adoption of Internet of Things (IOT) and digitalization technologies across multiple applications; new challenges and opportunities are emerging on a daily basis for the global packaging supply chain.
These challenges translate in to a new reality for today’s packaging converter. Demand for shorter production run lengths, with greater job frequency and turnaround times, combined with the need to provide ever higher quality and complexity at lower cost is common. Business owners and operators are seeking to focus on efficiency, but while trying to manage customer relationships and responsive service. Delivering more for less, effectively and efficiently, is the daily challenge and Esko, a global supplier of integrated hardware and software for the packaging, labels and wide format sectors, understands these challenges all too well.
Affecting the entire packaging value chain, these trends increase the need to identify and prevent errors in artwork, mitigate time pressures, make communication clearer and accelerate the need to quickly adapt to physical material changes as the industry evolves. These tasks are not easy but thankfully, in the midst of this difficult situation, there are packaging heroes; individuals in businesses who protect brand reputations by championing the role of packaging and print excellence in their organizations.
It is clear that the future of brands depends on consumer trust. We only need to look to the emissions crisis of Volkswagen, BP Oil crises, or leading retailer Tesco and its horsemeat scandal, to understand the importance of consumer trust in protecting brand equity and value. In fact, in a recent Esko consumer survey, 71% of consumers confirmed they trusted the information provided by packaging and labels. In this context, trusting a brand means trusting its packaging and therefore the packaging supply chain plays a critical role in supporting a brand’s reputation and loyalty.
Esko understands this paradigm and works to enable its customers, the true packaging heroes in the industry, to have new abilities to connect, automate and streamline processes from design to finish.
A good example of this can be seen at The Greenhouse Studio, the prepress division of the Reflex Labels Group. A multifunctional artwork, reprographics and platemaking business, Greenhouse supports 13 out of 20 Reflex sites, manufacturing a wide range of labels, flexible packaging and folding cartons. The packaging heroes at The Greenhouse understand the importance of streamlining workflows with Esko technology connected to a variety of in-house systems to deliver packaging and label performance excellence.
Ben Cox, Director of Reflex, said: “Reflex has successfully grown through acquisition in recent years so you can imagine the complexity we have dealt with. Every site we inherited had to be moved on to our preferred software to support connectivity and automation. We had to look carefully at our workflow and try to standardize, wherever possible, to ensure we maximized synergies and drove efficiency across the business. That being said, I must admit we’re pretty agnostic from a supply partner perspective. We simply work hard to identify the right best-in-class solutions and partners for the business and integrate them effectively to ensure we are delivering on time, every time for our customers.”
Sam Donohoe Greenhouse Studio Systems Manager added: “It’s important that we’re responding to our customers’ needs quickly and efficiently. The sector is growing, but as with many industries, the turnaround time is shortening and run lengths are decreasing too. We’re therefore handling more complexity in a faster time frame than ever before and we need technology that helps us deliver that efficiently, while maintaining quality, and without accruing additional unnecessary cost.”
Today, the Greenhouse team operates an ecosystem of Esko technologies including seven Automation Engines linking to a central Esko Webcenter to manage workflow around the Reflex sites. It was an early adopter of ArtPro+ native PDF editing software and operates a range of Esko technologies from preflighting up to the plate production stage.
The team at Reflex understands that by delivering label and packaging excellence, their customers’ reputations are protected and by working with Esko they have access to new abilities to compete and leverage competitive advantage over the long term.
To find out more about how Esko supports packaging heroes, please visit www.esko.com.
Esko: Supporting packaging heroes in today’s complex world
Esko, a Danaher company, is a global provider of integrated software and hardware solutions that digitize, automate and connect the go-to-market process of consumer goods. Esko connects people, processes and tools to meet the needs of global brands and the people who trust them.
Esko customers bring consumer products to life with accuracy, efficiency and speed. Packaging for 9 out of 10 major brands is produced by Esko customers today.
Headquartered in Gent, Belgium, Esko employs 1800 people worldwide with a unique focus on the packaging sector.
Mattias Byström, President of Esko, recently commented at the company’s annual EskoWorld users’ event in Nashville, USA, that “Packaging is a dangerous business to be in today because of the increasing macro-challenges and everyday pressures the industry faces. Thankfully there are packaging heroes in the value chain that make the difference for brands.”
From a macro challenge perspective, the packaging sector is subject to economic, social, environmental and technological shifts. From increasing globalization to new nationalistic agendas affecting global trade, the rise of the millennial consumer and their experience-driven purchasing habits, through to the evolving, highly competitive omni-channel retail environment and adoption of Internet of Things (IOT) and digitalization technologies across multiple applications; new challenges and opportunities are emerging on a daily basis for the global packaging supply chain.
These challenges translate in to a new reality for today’s packaging converter. Demand for shorter production run lengths, with greater job frequency and turnaround times, combined with the need to provide ever higher quality and complexity at lower cost is common. Business owners and operators are seeking to focus on efficiency, but while trying to manage customer relationships and responsive service. Delivering more for less, effectively and efficiently, is the daily challenge and Esko, a global supplier of integrated hardware and software for the packaging, labels and wide format sectors, understands these challenges all too well.
Affecting the entire packaging value chain, these trends increase the need to identify and prevent errors in artwork, mitigate time pressures, make communication clearer and accelerate the need to quickly adapt to physical material changes as the industry evolves. These tasks are not easy but thankfully, in the midst of this difficult situation, there are packaging heroes; individuals in businesses who protect brand reputations by championing the role of packaging and print excellence in their organizations.
It is clear that the future of brands depends on consumer trust. We only need to look to the emissions crisis of Volkswagen, BP Oil crises, or leading retailer Tesco and its horsemeat scandal, to understand the importance of consumer trust in protecting brand equity and value. In fact, in a recent Esko consumer survey, 71% of consumers confirmed they trusted the information provided by packaging and labels. In this context, trusting a brand means trusting its packaging and therefore the packaging supply chain plays a critical role in supporting a brand’s reputation and loyalty.
Esko understands this paradigm and works to enable its customers, the true packaging heroes in the industry, to have new abilities to connect, automate and streamline processes from design to finish.
A good example of this can be seen at The Greenhouse Studio, the prepress division of the Reflex Labels Group. A multifunctional artwork, reprographics and platemaking business, Greenhouse supports 13 out of 20 Reflex sites, manufacturing a wide range of labels, flexible packaging and folding cartons. The packaging heroes at The Greenhouse understand the importance of streamlining workflows with Esko technology connected to a variety of in-house systems to deliver packaging and label performance excellence.
Ben Cox, Director of Reflex, said: “Reflex has successfully grown through acquisition in recent years so you can imagine the complexity we have dealt with. Every site we inherited had to be moved on to our preferred software to support connectivity and automation. We had to look carefully at our workflow and try to standardize, wherever possible, to ensure we maximized synergies and drove efficiency across the business. That being said, I must admit we’re pretty agnostic from a supply partner perspective. We simply work hard to identify the right best-in-class solutions and partners for the business and integrate them effectively to ensure we are delivering on time, every time for our customers.”
Sam Donohoe Greenhouse Studio Systems Manager added: “It’s important that we’re responding to our customers’ needs quickly and efficiently. The sector is growing, but as with many industries, the turnaround time is shortening and run lengths are decreasing too. We’re therefore handling more complexity in a faster time frame than ever before and we need technology that helps us deliver that efficiently, while maintaining quality, and without accruing additional unnecessary cost.”
Today, the Greenhouse team operates an ecosystem of Esko technologies including seven Automation Engines linking to a central Esko Webcenter to manage workflow around the Reflex sites. It was an early adopter of ArtPro+ native PDF editing software and operates a range of Esko technologies from preflighting up to the plate production stage.
The team at Reflex understands that by delivering label and packaging excellence, their customers’ reputations are protected and by working with Esko they have access to new abilities to compete and leverage competitive advantage over the long term.
To find out more about how Esko supports packaging heroes, please visit www.esko.com.
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