“This is especially true for something like digital printing of folding cartons,” says Tony Snyder, President Product Portfolio Management and Deployment at Philip Morris. Which is why the firm--whose corporate headquarters are in New York City and whose Operation Center is in Lausanne, Switzerland--developed its own in-house hybrid digital folding carton printing and converting operation at its Neuchatel Innovation Development Center. Operating there is a Gallus Labelfire 340, a hybrid press that combines the latest digital printing technology with the benefits of conventional printing and further finishing technology. Jointly developed by Gallus and Heidelberg, this inline label printing system features a printing module with SAMBA ink-jet printing heads developed by Fujifilm Dimatix and Fujifilm Corp. This is not about vertical integration or self-manufacturing. The goal is to demonstrate to those on the supplier side just how keen Philip Morris is about moving digital converting technology forward.
