FuturePrint TV - In Conversation with Vincent Wille, Agfa

In March, FuturePrint’s Frazer Chesterman met up with Vincent Wille, President of Digital Printing Chemicals at Agfa. Vincent’s background started in Chemical Engineering, with twelve years experience in chemical production, operations, sales and marketing before becoming Chief Innovation Officer at Lhoist and subsequently taking up the role at Agfa in May 2021.

Agfa’s technological excellence and robust Intellectual Property portfolio inspired Vincent and attracted him to the organisation. He has a great respect for his colleagues’ passion for innovation, and believes this makes the business truly special. 

Turning innovation into success

Vincent explains that the very ethos of digital printing is innovation, and while it has been a prominent technology in the sign and display market for years, it is only just starting to take off within the industrial sector and it’s likely to take a few more years to be fully adopted. 

In order to turn innovation into success, he stresses the importance of first understanding the customer’s current processes to make sure a proposed digital solution will even work with them. You cannot simply force a customer to change and adapt to inkjet straight away, and it’s this research and development phase that really excites Vincent. 

What is driving change at Agfa?

As we’ve seen across the whole industry and in our latest Vision Report, sustainability is a significant factor in current business change and strategy. Vincent emphasises the need for us all to be more sustainable, but also explains how the very nature of digital print is a much more sustainable option. It allows shorter runs, less waste in production, more personalisation, and as it’s quicker to market, customers have much less obsolete stock.

Future development

Vincent tells Frazer about three areas he’s personally most excited to see develop in the near future. The niche sector of leather printing sees few companies in the space, allowing Agfa to evolve and introduce unique processes. Vincent also explains that packaging is a key area of interest - as a whole it’s a large industry, but digital printing only plays a small part within that. Vincent is seeing packaging move from corrugated to carton to flex pack and is really excited about the opportunity here. Finally, he tells Frazer about the décor market and how Agfa have already created some specific unique solutions here and have more in the pipeline. You can read more about Agfa’s activity in the decor space in our recent feature.

Frazer and Vincent had a great discussion - look out for more content from  Vincent and Agfa on the FuturePrint platform soon. You can watch the interview now over on the FuturePrint YouTube channel.

Vincent will be speaking at the FuturePrint Leaders Summit in Geneva in June. Find out more about the event here.