DRUPA 2016 : this year’s edition focuses on the technologies in the printing sector

After Paperworld, held at the end of February and the start of March in Frankfurt this year, Drupa will also take place in Germany, opening its doors in Düsseldorf, for another major print and printing industry event.

In this new edition of the print trade fair, slated from 31 May to 10 June 2016, professionals from all over the world will have the opportunity to discover the innovations in the graphic and industrial printing sector, multimedia and multi-channel equipment.

This year’s fair is the place to be to explore the latest high-tech developments, which will arouse curiosity and interest regarding financial opportunities.

Drupa is also the occasion to take the pulse of the printing market and its suppliers

On the whole, these sectors are quite optimistic for 2016. This information can be found in the report “Tendances mondiales Drupa” (Drupa, Global trends) and “Drupa, Perspectives mondiales” (Drupa, Global prospects), which details continuous studies (it’s the third edition since 2012) of trends and major changes in the international print and media sector on global and regional levels. The results are based on responses from a representative panel composed of businesses in the printing, supplying and customer sectors around the world and principally, recruited from data on visitors and exhibitors during the fair.

The number of exhibitors present at this event resolutely turned towards the new technologies, speak for the merits of materialisation and particularly dematerialisation.

And so to a handful of this edition’s innovations

A new range of printing services managed and secured by HP Inc, in addition to 15 new printer models; these intelligent printers have the ability to diagnose and repair themselves.

As progressively more consumers put emphasis on freshness, nutritional value and safety of packaged foods, flexible packaging developed for the purpose of improving food safety, will be presented as veritable innovations. They are sustainable, light and reduce transport costs as they require less freight space.
The 3D printers have found a new niche in the field of medicine, enabling the creation of devices inspired by origami (Japanese paper-folding), so small that the incisions used for their implantation can be healed on their own without sutures. These developments really deserve to be witnessed at the fair.

From the viewpoint of waste management and environmental protection, bioplastics have a solid future. At the print media fair, they will be demonstrated as materials capable of realising a series of compostable and biodegradable multifunctional packaging products that will contribute to a true circular economy. Their utilisation is already planned in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries. It should be noted that bioplastic materials present new characteristics that transform them into veritable agents of product conservation.

On another level, Drupa will be the moment to discover new printers for smartphones, and also the latest innovations in the field of invisible ink to hinder counterfeiting.

In other words, based on these few examples, hi-tech for some, the next edition of Drupa will be very connected to the new markets without, however, losing sight of the core business of printing and all the printing techniques.