Danny Scales, Technical Support & Sales Manager, Heaford US, shares his thoughts on how the market in the US is developing and highlights the most important things for the region’s flexo printers to be thinking about to plan their future success.

Danny’s thoughts are included as part of an in-depth mid-year economic update, as published by Label & Narrow Web; the full report can be read here.

Flexo printers are being squeezed from two sides: rising input costs and margin pressure, and growing competition from digital for shorter runs and customization.

Flexo remains the dominant technology in North America and maintaining that position increasingly depends on how efficiently operations are run. The focus is shifting toward simplifying workflows, reducing touchpoints, and ensuring jobs are produced right first time.

Cost-conscious converters are looking closely at where automation genuinely adds value. This is often in pre-press and changeovers, where wasted time, materials, and substrates are minimised. Those streamlining these stages and removing complexity are better positioned to stay competitive, especially on medium to longer runs.

Local challenges and global threats

Sustained geopolitical challenges, tariff uncertainty, and cautious capital investment are the biggest challenges and continue to create a difficult backdrop.

For our customers, the biggest challenge is making flexo viable across a broader mix of job lengths while maintaining margins. Bottlenecks in areas like changeovers, plate mounting, and colour consistency can quickly erode productivity and increase waste.

As a result, converters are prioritising solutions that are simple to implement, reduce reliance on highly specialised skills, and deliver consistent, repeatable results. The emphasis is on getting jobs right first time and keeping presses running, rather than adding complexity or over-investing in automation that may not suit their business currently.

Economic pressures are reinforcing a more cautious and pragmatic approach to investment. Converters are under pressure to protect margins while still increasing throughput.

This is driving interest in flexible, scalable approaches to automation, and where businesses can adopt the level of automation that fits their operation today and expand over time as needed. The Heaford ModularMount platform is designed exactly for this need and can be configured from manual to fully automatic, and anywhere in between. Printer’s the upgrade as their business grows. It’s also backwardly compatible from auto to manual, for maximum flexibility.  

The priority is not automation for automation’s sake but automation that simplifies processes, reduces waste, and improves consistency without disrupting existing workflows.

In this environment, solutions that support gradual improvement, rather than large, complex overhauls, are resonating more strongly.

Technology and the modern-day flexo workforce

Workforce challenges remain significant, particularly around skills availability and retention.

Technology is playing an important role in simplifying tasks and reducing operator dependency, rather than replacing people. The most effective solutions are those that remove variability, support consistency, and allow operators of varying experience levels to achieve reliable results. Automation and AI are most valuable when they help standardize processes, reduce errors, and enable teams to do more with less but without adding complexity. This means focusing on practical, easy-to-use systems that support right-first-time production and free up skilled operators to focus on higher-value tasks.

Wide web customers are seeing the value in the ModularMount system because companies will not need to invest in a whole new automated mounter when senior staff retire. In the future. when that operator does retire, their Heaford mounter is upgraded to the level of automation that suits younger, less experienced operators.

However, many narrow web printers are unable to finance investment in high automation in the current climate, so simple-to-use solutions like the Heaford FTS mounter support the need for practical and easy-to-use systems. With the plate lying flat on a table, it is very simple for the operator to mount with a high degree of accuracy and speed without the cost of expensive plate positioning capabilities. The FTS is also future proofed with a multitude of retrofittable options to increase efficiency and support additional press purchases from different manufacturers.

The full Label & Narrow Web 2026 Mid-Year Economic Update can be read here