Future Links December 17th 2014
Here are our daily links with the most important news from the printing industry. Today they feature a round of venture investing for Impossible Objects, recognition for RR Donnelly as a leading outsourcing firm, companies working on reducing the after-Christmas waste, a new super-thin RFID-label, the importance of color management and environmentally friendly beverage packaging solutions.
Impossible Objects raises 2.8 million USD in financing
The 3D printing company Impossible Objects has secured a round of investments from OCA Ventures and several angel investors. Impossible Objects focuses on enabling 3D printing with a variety of materials such as Kevlar and fiberglass composites, thus making the objects immediately usable.
More at 3D Print
RR Donnelly recognized as leading outsourcing firm
The 150-year-old printing company has already demonstrated how to successfully adapt to new business environments. Now, RR Donnelly was recognized for the fourth consecutive year in The Global Outsourcing 100. The company was also listed as one of the leading companies for some of their other services such as document management and financial management services.
More at What They Think?
Reducing the after-Christmas waste
The gift-giving season around the holidays has proved to be a boon for e-commerce. Online purchases are expected to grow by 20 percent this year. The growth in online sales has also brought an increased demand for cardboard and paper packaging, labels and foam packaging. While some of it is recycled after the holidays, a considerable percentage of packaging materials end up in landfills. A number of companies are now tackling the problem, designing ways to recycle or reuse the materials.
More at The Guardian
Schreiner LogiData develops super-thin RFID label
The DistaFerr Slim label is much smaller than standard solutions and enables consistent marking of metallic products with good reading range of one meter. It can be programmed and printed on location off-the-roll and is particularly well suited for production, service and assembly processes in the mechanical engineering, general industrials, automotive and metal processing sectors.
More at Narrow Web Tech
Consistent color increasingly important for brand-name companies
Exact color matching is becoming more and more important. Recent research has shown that large corporations invest thousands of dollars every year in examining the role and influence of color on their customers’ perception. As a consequence, printers will need to step up their color management game to meet their customers’ needs.
More at Output Magazine
Tetra Pak and Elopak compete for environmentally friendly solutions
Both companies have put considerable efforts into bringing environmentally friendly beverage packaging solutions to market. They healthy competition is heating up: After Tetra Pak said it would be making the industry’s first carton made entirely from plant-based, renewable packaging materials commercially available in early 2015, Elopak announced it will offer beverage cartons with renewable coating to the European market.
More at Plastics Today