Leaders Summit: Creating New Markets for Industrial Inkjet
The FuturePrint Leaders Summit is taking place on the 23rd and 24th of March, where global leaders in print technology will offer insight, opinion and a vision for the future as the world emerges, a new market materialises, and new opportunities are revealed. John Corrall, Managing Director of Industrial Inkjet Ltd is an inkjet veteran, with 34 years in the business under his belt. Working at Domino, Elmjet, Videojet, Xaar, Xennia, before founding Industrial Inkjet in 2005, John held a number of R&D and engineering roles, as well as service and manufacturing, and credits the high amount of field work in his experience as being key to the founding of IIJ. We caught up with John ahead of his participation in the event.
John Corrall, Managing Director, Industrial Inkjet Ltd
When it comes to how the development of inkjet will play out over the next few years, John sees the corrugated market as relatively saturated in terms of equipment suppliers. John says: “There will be a trend to add features (eg more colours) and a lot of price pressure but nothing radical. Recently the label machine suppliers have at last got firmly behind the “hybrid” message (we did our first hybrid in 2011!). I think we may be starting to see some rationalisation of the technology.”
Security print now makes up a significant portion of the business, with John explaining: “Security print is growing fast. Passports, ID cards, driving licences, tax stamps. Currency print using inkjet will take off soon. There is a certain amount you can do with a laser, but really most of the new covert techniques being developed use inkjet. Security print is starting to encroach into the packaging market as well, not just with track and trace but for things like copy-prevention and brand protection.”
What is it that makes inkjet such a crucial element when it comes to the markets IIJ operates in? According to John, it’s simple economics. “It always comes down to economics. Inkjet ink is always more expensive than “conventional” or analog inks, but that extra cost is balanced against tooling costs, setup time and waste.
“If the application is variable information then – especially if the print is to meet a regulatory requirement – inkjet is going to be adopted sooner or later. If its printing a relatively static image (such as a food packet) then the economics might not look so great unless run lengths are short. For every project we tackle we will have to work with the customer to model the economics. Once the system is installed and running then the priorities do change a little. More than 30 years ago I was involved in some market research for a certain inkjet Co. In order of priority what our customers wanted was reliability, ease of use, and low cost. I don’t think this has changed at all.”
IIJ’s vision for the future is very much led by what the customer needs. As John explains: “Most of the time a customer comes to us when he can’t find an existing machine on the market that will do what he wants to do. OK sometimes this is because he is crazy, but a lot of the time it is simply that he is ahead of the pack and is seeing an opportunity that his competitors haven’t spotted yet. Our job is to make it happen for him. We will find a suitable ink, test it and prove it meets his needs. We will make print samples. and when he is ready we will build the inkjet system for him and integrate it into his line.”
Register for the session ‘Creating New Markets for Inkjet’ here.
View the full Leaders Summit schedule here.
Find out more about Industrial Inkjet Ltd here.
