by Melissa Donovan
Flexography historically reigned supreme for printing corrugated packaging. However, with versioning, short runs, and multiple SKUs increasingly requested from every vendor, customer, and corporation, it is no surprise that digital is a larger part of the mix than ever before. Both multi- and single-pass digital printers are integral to a corrugated converter or print shop. A combination of digital processes as well as flexography hits all of the sweet spots in terms of volume and speed.
Above: The most relevant Mimaki print platforms for corrugated printing are the JFX600 Series and JFX200 EX Series UV LED flatbed multi-pass printers.
Full Scale
The corrugated packaging sector is transitioning from using digital printing primarily for short runs and prototyping. Industrial-scale production is now possible thanks to single-pass digital print technologies.
Steve Lynn, executive director, Durst Image Technology US, says “single-pass printing is already industrial for the right volumes and portfolios, while new generation multi-pass printing is now credible for a broader production mix than before.”
Digital’s use in corrugated packaging wouldn’t be where it is today without the help of multi-pass digital printers. “Multi-pass systems are the preferred on ramp—they allow production teams to adopt digital printing gradually, mastering workflow, color control, and substrate behavior before moving into high-volume applications. Users often begin with multi-pass printers because it fits naturally into their existing production mix,” explains Dieter Jancart, segment manager high-end systems, printing systems, Agfa.
Erik Norman, president, swissQprint America, agrees, citing multi-pass flatbed systems as already well established in short-run production, sampling, versioning, and display packaging. Single pass is increasingly positioned for medium to longer production runs where speed is critical. With this in mind, Norman notes converters adopting a hybrid strategy.
“They continue to rely on flexography for very long runs while using digital—especially multi-pass UV flatbeds—for short runs, fast turnarounds, and high-value applications. The shift is not about replacing flexography entirely, but about expanding production flexibility and profitability,” suggests Norman.
Hugo Gonzalez, senior segment specialist, Mimaki USA, Inc., echoes his peers, noting that multi-pass does “play an important role, especially in prototyping, short runs, mockups, and specialty applications. In this space, it is not so much about replacing flexographic systems, but about providing a faster and economical option to go from concept to finished product.”
On the single-pass printing side, Chuck Slingerland, VP, Barberán US, says this technology is already in full industrial use. “Today’s systems deliver high line speeds suitable for mainstream corrugated jobs, consistent and repeatable quality that meets brand expectations, and integration with automated board handling for continuous production.”
“Single-pass technology is an excellent solution for profitable corrugated work, versioning, retailer-specific graphics, seasonal campaigns, and increasingly for repeat production where converters need flexography-like productivity with digital agility,” shares Bill Myers, marketing manager, Domino Digital Printing North America.
Another example, Daniel Velema, managing director, Koenig & Bauer Durst, says single-pass inkjet systems like the Delta SPC 130 platform print tens and tens of million sheets per year. “Digital is no longer limited to prototyping or short runs. Converters now run digital lines around the clock for both primary and secondary packaging. These are not experimental setups; they are part of serious production strategies.”
Kristen Minlschmidt, product marketing and NPI strategy manager, HP Inc., believes that great printing alone is not enough to transition to full industrial levels of digital corrugated printing. “Converters must bring together workflows that are often siloed today, from planning and ERP, graphics and prepress, the digital press, quality inspection, through to downstream corrugation and converting, so the entire system runs as one efficient manufacturing process. Once the broader production workflow is aligned, corrugated digital printing becomes a scalable manufacturing model, not a specialty capability.”
All that being said, “industry adoption is still early—worldwide digital print in corrugated remains only a very small percentage of total volume, so the technology is ready faster than the market has fully transitioned,” admits John Kelley, managing director, Kento North America.
Thriving System Updates
Engineering developments from ink sets to printheads allow digital printing to compete with analog presses in the corrugated packaging space. These updates enable a positive outcome despite the challenging nature of corrugated board.
Ink sets used for corrugated board must demonstrate specific feature sets. “Corrugated boards are inconsistent—they warp and vary in porosity. Ink sets must be engineered to deliver exceptional jetting reliability even at high printhead gaps, ensuring clean, consistent droplet placement despite surface unevenness. The ink’s formulation should support long open printhead times, stray light robustness, and excellent jetting. This reliability directly mitigates issues like dot gain and inconsistent absorption,” notes Jancart.
A consideration post-print is that the ink set withstand bending and creasing without cracking. “Optional inline overprint varnish can enhance surface protection and appearance so printed packaging can withstand conversion, handling, and transit,” adds Minlschmidt.
“The newest single‑pass corrugated presses tackle ink absorption, dot gain, and surface variability by engineering the primer, ink, printheads, and curing as one system. Together, these advances turn highly variable liner board into a more predictable, repeatable print platform,” explains Slingerland.
Printhead improvements include “improved recirculation technologies and more robust nozzle design, which help maintain consistency even in dusty corrugated environments. In practice, this means more stable print quality across varying liner board qualities without sacrificing productivity,” shares Kelley.
UV LED curable inks meet the needs of corrugated board. They offer a combination of durability, color performance, and energy efficiency. “UV LED technology enables instant curing, excellent adhesion, and strong abrasion resistance. High pigment density supports vibrant colors even on brown or kraft liner board. In addition, UV LED curing reduces energy consumption compared to traditional mercury lamp systems,” states Norman.
When printing with UV LED curable inks, an inline primer acts as a sealer, reducing the absorbency of high‑recycled liners and creating a more uniform surface so pigments don’t sink into the fibers or wick along the grain. “UV LED curable inks cure on this primed surface almost instantly, which limits dot gain and keeps pigments near the surface for higher color density and better durability. The primer’s surface energy is matched to the ink and to modern printhead jetting, presenting controlled wetting, clean edges, and more consistent halftones. Meanwhile multi‑zone LED curing is tuned to line speed and ink load to lock the image in place with minimal heat and warp,” explains Slingerland.
Primer technology helps standardize the print surface. “The priming station widens the usable range of top liners, improving print quality, sharpening fine detail and text, optimizing color gamut, and enabling flying job change with spot priming. That is highly relevant to corrugated because the real challenge is not only absorption, but also the variability between coated, uncoated, brown, white, and lower grade liners,” says Lynn.
In addition, Koenig & Bauer Durst’s digital primer provides controlled surface energy and absorption uniformity. “By stabilizing the print surface, the primer increases achievable optical density and can reduce ink consumption by up to 20 percent compared to non-primed printing,” explains Velema.
Water-based ink chemistry is also used in corrugated board printing. Certain formulations are monomer free, organic pigmented, odor free, and abrasion resistant, lists Lynn.
“True water-based and high-viscosity aqueous ink systems align with corrugated sustainability requirements and increasingly stringent regulatory expectations for direct food contact packaging. At the same time, advances in pigment dispersion and ink formulation deliver higher color density and durability, while reducing penetration into the substrate. This results in better print performance with lower ink consumption and improved recyclability profiles,” states Kelley.
The evolution of aqueous pigment ink chemistry is significant, certain particles allow for enhanced printing reliability. “i-Tech PolyM is a polymeric particle technology designed to print reliably on both coated and uncoated corrugated without a separate primer or bonding agent. That is significant from both a productivity and sustainability standpoint—it simplifies the process, reduces consumables, and supports strong color performance while maintaining the mechanical properties needed for corrugated packaging,” explains Myers.
Hybrid architectures are also noteworthy, as they marry the advantages of flexography with digital printing in one device. This means “using flexography for solids, backgrounds, whites, and spot colors, while using single-pass inkjet where digital adds value, such as high-definition graphics, variable content, and fast changeovers. The hybrid model directly attacks the traditional economic weakness of digital in corrugated by reducing expensive digital ink consumption while preserving the benefits of plate-free production,” says Kelley.
Handling Media
Advances are also made in regard to material handling—across every part of the process. “There are fully automated systems with loading and unloading arms, pneumatic and fixed registration systems, as well as hands free and zoned vacuum controls,” lists Gonzalez.
“Automation is essential. Corrugated converters are dealing with more SKU proliferation, more substrate variation, and tighter lead times than ever before,” states Myers.
Thanks to automation, operators easily switch between different grades, flute sizes, and thicknesses. “This is increasingly important as they face a growing variety of board types driven by segmentation, customization, and sustainability initiatives,” says Jancart.
“Innovations in board stabilization—such as optimized media guide systems on multi-pass hybrid printers and high vacuum tables on multi-pass flatbeds—help keep even warped or lower grade boards flat during printing. This significantly improves registration, ink placement, and color consistency,” explains Jancart.
Stabilizing the board is not just a convenience feature in multi-pass scenarios, notes Lynn. “It is critical when the substrate itself is inconsistent in caliper, flatness, or flute profile. Better board control directly helps reduce print defects that operators might otherwise blame on dot gain or absorbency.”
“With so many board grades and flute sizes in use, reliable automation in hardware and software simply keeps production predictable and profitable,” adds Velema.
High‑volume, single-pass print lines also use fully automated board handling. It helps them “move seamlessly from microflute to double wall, with recipe‑based setups, automatic vacuum and alignment adjustments, and warp management tuned for lightweight and high‑recycled boards. This allows plants to switch quickly between E, B, and C flutes for display and packaging work and heavy BC or double wall for shipping cases without creating bottlenecks at the press. On the back end, automated stackers and material handling systems manage programmable stack formats, automatic counting and separation, and integration with existing conveyors and logistics for hands‑off, continuous high‑speed production,” states Slingerland.
Automation and workflow work hand in hand. “The physical movement of rolls, sheets, and stacks has to stay synchronized with the movement of data. Automation only delivers productivity when material handling and digital job intelligence work as one system, so the correct substrate, job sequence, and downstream instructions arrive together, right when they’re needed,” shares Minlschmidt.
“Across both multi- and single-pass printing, improvements in automation, software integration, and color management have made digital systems more predictable and production ready. The result is reduced waste, faster job changeovers, and more efficient handling of variable data and multiple SKUs,” shares Norman.
For example, Gonzalez shares how front end software simplifies everything from design to print to processing—all from one interface. This increases production and reduces waste by eliminating touch points for operators.
Existing Barriers
There are challenges to overcome in terms of digital printing’s wider adoption into corrugated manufacturing facilities.
According to Norman, the main barriers are still cost structure and production mindset. “Flexographic printing remains highly cost effective for very long runs. Digital must justify itself through flexibility, reduced inventory, faster turnaround, and versioning capabilities. Another barrier is integration into existing workflows. Converters need confidence in uptime, operator training, and predictable performance across varying board materials.”
“Digital ink cost is still a concern compared to flexography, particularly for large coverage areas. In addition, many converters are still evaluating where digital fits best within their production mix. The transition is not just about investing in equipment—it requires changes in workflow, prepress, production planning, and commercial strategy. While the demand for shorter runs and higher SKU variation is clearly growing, the shift toward digital is happening progressively rather than overnight,” admits Kelley.
Lynn suggests digital does not have to imitate flexography exactly to compete with it. “In corrugated, value increasingly comes from versioning, variable content, reduced tooling, shorter make ready, and fast changes between jobs or substrates. So the competitive equation is no longer just ‘cost per square meter at one long repeat run,’ but overall plant efficiency and responsiveness across a job portfolio.”
“Converters need confidence in the business model—where digital fits against flexography, what run lengths make sense, how to schedule mixed analog/digital production, and how to sell the value of shorter runs, versioning, and inventory reduction to brand owners,” states Myers.
Another barrier is substrate and process complexity. “Corrugated is not one substrate; it is many. The variation in top liners, absorbency, flute construction, thickness, and converting requirements means digital success depends on engineering the process correctly—including board quality, priming, drying, color management, and finishing,” shares Lynn.
According to Minlschmidt, the challenges associated with digital adoption are more about what it takes to industrialize digital within the existing ecosystem of a corrugated plant. “Substrate variability and the production environment can all challenge consistency, so systems must be engineered and maintained for robust, repeatable production. And because corrugated manufacturing is built around high-speed material logistics, success also depends on seamless integration with the physical flow of rolls, sheets, and stacks staying synchronized with the flow of data, automation, and downstream instructions across the plant.”
“The primary barriers are organizational, not technical. Most converters already recognize the reliability and quality of industrial digital systems, but they are still aligning their workflows, estimating models, and production planning to fully exploit the possibilities of manufacturing digitization. Digital printing is only solving a part of the puzzle, that is also why working together with the customer and its other suppliers during a project is in our natural DNA,” admits Velema.
For multi-pass systems, Gonzalez believes the primary barrier is economical. “While it may make sense for a smaller PSP to have a multi-pass digital system for short-run applications, it may not likely make sense for volume corrugated printers to incorporate multi-pass digital.”
Full Reach
Physical upgrades to the newest digital presses from board handling to ink chemistries, as well as workflow software aid in creating a a successful environment for any corrugated packaging provider.
A hybrid approach allows for canvasing the full range of corrugated packaging, whether that be long static runs (flexography), prototypes and sampling (multi-pass digital), or high-speed multiple versions and/or SKUs (single-pass digital). While it may not be a feasible economic investment to incorporate all three at one facility, acknowledging how each technology complements the other is key.
“The plants that recognize digital as a core part of a modern hybrid production strategy—rather than a niche add on—are already using single pass as a mainstream tool and demonstrating that these remaining barriers are transitional, not structural,” suggests Slingerland.
Jun2026, Industrial Print Magazine
