Landa Plans to 'Run More' in 2024 and Beyond

In fitting with Landa's theme of "Run More," Cheryl Kahanec, CEO of Morton Grove, Illinois-based Quantum Group, announced that the company had inked a deal for its second Landa press during the Landa pre-drupa event in New York City this week. Following her announcement, which came during a four-person user panel, Bob Neff, president and CEO of Neff Packaging in Simpsonville, Kentucky, revealed that his company had also signed on for a second Landa press. Although Dr. Sean Smyth, a print analyst and consultant and moderator of the panel, opened the discussion by joking that the panel represented 10% of all Landa devices in the field, by the end of the session, that number had swelled with the announcements from Kahanec and Neff.

Joining Kahanec and Neff on stage were Paul Hudson, owner and CEO of Salt Lake City, Utah's Hudson Printing, which already has two Landa S10P presses; and Tara Duckett, sales manager, of Southern Champion Tray in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Considering three of the four panelists on stage are now set to be owners of multiple Landa presses, it seems Landa might have to update its percentage of second-time (or more) customers, which, earlier in the day, was said to be 20%, according to Sharon Cohen, chief business officer of Landa Digital Printing.

To kick off the day, Landa Digital Printing's CEO Gil Oron explored the company's innovative journey and explained that part of Landa's DNA is forming partnerships with its customers to bring them the technology that will meet their needs.

"What we understood that we had to focus on, and we did in the past three years, is to make sure that the products [have a] very high level of productivity, of availability, of stability, of reliability," he said.

Oron furthered this by explaining that Landa is not only working closely with its customers to further development, but it is working to deepen its presence in existing and future markets, doubling its business year-over-year for the past three years.

"[We're] deepening our presence in the current existing markets, but also [we] continue to develop and enter new markets based on the same nanography technology," he said. "So, the next one will be flexible packaging, but we are not stopping there."

With the goal to expand and move into flexible packaging top of mind, Cohen took the stage to share some of Landa's biggest milestones to date. He said that the company has sold 50 units worldwide to a diverse set of customers. If there was one word to describe Landa today, according to Cohen, it would be "momentum."

"Positive momentum, momentum of growth, more presses, more geographies, more technologies, more applications ... very strong momentum, and we're enjoying that," he said.

Sustainability Concerns Necessitate Shift

One area of focus for the day was the need for more sustainable solutions in the printing industry. Etay Harpak, product manager at Landa, positioned Landa's offerings as being sustainable solutions than other technologies on the market. He noted the technology's "near 0 makeready paper waste," as well as its water-based inks, the fact that it doesn't need plates, its ability to use recycled substrates, and that it has a smaller carbon footprint when compared to offset technology.

In terms of paper waste, he said that a company could see a savings of more than 670,000 sheets per year when compared to offset, saving that company $255,000 annually on waste. Furthermore, companies could see savings of approximately 2,240 offset hours freed per year and 17,000 printing plates saved per year, resulting in potentially $750,000 annually on offset hours.

"[The] bottom line?" Harpak said. "Over $1 million saved in one year."

Trends and User Tales

Two highlights of the event were a market trends review by Dr. Sean Smyth, a print analyst and consultant; and the four-person user panel moderated by Dr. Smyth (for more information on the market trends session, see the sidebar included below).

Each panelist described different reasons for investing in the Landa devices originally, but all of them found that the technology was the perfect fit for their needs.

I've had this vision of having the ability to produce and support customers on a weekly basis for folding cartons … for about seven years, and I've been waiting for technology to catch up," Neff said.

For Hudson, it was all about efficiency and the ability to produce various run lengths and variable data printing. He explained that since Hudson Printing runs web offset presses too, he analyzed data over the course of many months to determine what was most efficient between the Landa and the web offset technology. For the shorter runs, Landa just made more sense.

"I actually looked at four months of data, and I found that 20% of the runs were under 3,000 sheets, and in that group, the average was 1,800 sheets," he said. "So, for an offset Web press, that's a really, really short run. And so that was that was a significant part of my ROI calculation."

The Landa user panel comprised (from left) Cheryl Kahanec, CEO, Quantum Group; Tara Duckett, sales manager, Southern Champion Tray; Paul Hudson, owner and CEO, Hudson Printing; Bob Neff, president and CEO, Neff Packaging; and moderator Dr. Sean Smyth, print analyst and consultant.

Southern Champion Tray didn't have the best first experience with digital, but Duckett says that's changed. Her first experience with digital at the company left a "bitter taste" in their mouths, so getting buy-in from her team to try a different digital press wasn't necessarily easy, but it was worth it.

"Once that press came through the door, it was it was a game changer," she said. "Everybody threw their name in the hat to be an operator. So we were very successful at it."

Kahanec admits there was also some resistance from her team at first, but a fire changed everything.

"We had a fire in our [40″] eight-color UV press," she said. "That kind of changed the world for us. ... When that fire happened, it changed the company because all of the sales resistance, the salespeople that were saying, 'Oh, we have to test it, we're gonna have to look at it, to play with it, and then to bring it to our customers and ask their permission to do this. So we're staying on the eight-color.' All of a sudden, they were in my office lined up to give me a reason why their jobs were the most important."

It not only changed the salespeople, it changed the operators too. Kahanec explained that she had a print operator who said he would leave if a digital press was brought in because he wanted to be where they "do real printing." Now, he's a Landa operator.

"That wall that was between digital and offset is gone," she said.

Hudson echoed that sentiment, pressing the importance of breaking down those barriers, because in the end, it's about what makes the customer happy.

"Doesn't really matter what the equipment is," he said. "It's just about getting that job right, on time, to the customer, in a way that they're happy with."

Landa closed the event with a look at what attendees can expect at drupa. Christine Ahn, director of marketing and business administration at Landa, took the stage to share that the company will have a 32,000-sq.-ft. booth at the event, which is the equivalent of seven NBA basketball courts.

Cohen closed the event by reiterating that the company has exciting things planned for the future, including increased sheets per hour capabilities and embedded artificial intelligence to increase print quality.

"We're going to see ourselves releasing more products into more segments, including flexible packaging ... more applications, more geographies, more parts of the world, more customers, more and more, and more," he concluded. "Nanography is just starting. ... We know it's [been] a long run, but we would like to continue to run and we would like to run with you together, so let's run more."