For all of us, we are now engulfed the most unprecedented and uncertain period of time in living memory. National Governments have adopted different approaches to dealing with the crisis with mixed success and we expect businesses to be the same. We are using this time to plan our next move, whilst watching and waiting until business returns. In the few days running up to our webinar and discussion which is planned for the 30th April – we asked our FuturePrint partners how they each plan to face the challenges that lie ahead for us all with a particular focus on the ‘Future of Print’ in this enlightening two-part article – Managing the Crisis and Rebooting your Business.

We are pleased to have spoken to Peter Saunders at Sun Chemical, Simon Roberts at Integration Technology, Neil Cook at GIS, Arnaud Linquette at Memjet, Graham Kennedy at Ricoh and Stephen Tunnicliffe-Wilson at Inca Digital.

Managing the Crisis Part 1

We are now facing an unprecedented time in the next few months, how has your business decided to manage the crisis?

Arnaud Linquette from Memjet: This is a global health and economic crisis. Memjet is working hard to ensure our organization, our OEM partners, and their end-user customers maintain a favourable business outlook during this time.

Our response to the virus is the same as our response to the development of our printing technology: a global and cross-functional team effort. This focus on teamwork creates an agility that enables us to adjust our processes and create supply chain resilience.

At this point, some of our sites have been impacted more than others by this health crisis. For these sites, we are working on contingency plans to ensure continuity of supply. Other sites are in good working order, with normal production and healthy stocking levels. Some areas are returning to work, and delivery dates for outstanding orders are being adjusted.

These efforts ensure our OEM partners can receive the technology, components, and support they need when they need it.

Still, in these modern times, delays are unavoidable. The impact of the pandemic has clearly impacted development schedules and altered marketing plans for Memjet and our OEM Partners. We have announced several solutions in the early part of 2020, but other Powered by Memjet solutions will now be available later in 2020 and for Drupa 2021.

Peter at Sun Chemical: Following advice from the government as well as sharing best practice from our internal learnings across the world, this gives us a unique insight into the trajectory of lockdowns and how to manage our continued operations in the best way possible. We have often implemented policies in advance of government guidelines.

Sun Chemical is the largest provider of inks, pigments and coatings in the world and thus it is inevitable that we are a major supplier to the packaging, labelling and coding marking processes of many food and pharmaceutical products globally.

We must, therefore, try to maintain production capacity in the safest way possible. This means social distancing in the workplace, work from home when not directly involved in manufacturing, remove contact points between shifts, regular and intensive cleaning of workplaces, time for regular handwashing, no visitors allowed, deliveries and collections with zero contact with staff and a health check on these drivers.

Simon Roberts at Integration Technology: It’s fair to say that priority has been given to our communities; to maintaining as best we can the health and wellbeing of our colleagues and their families, and not least to help ensure service consistency in the face of increased demand from customers looking to sustain supply chain integrity.

We’re lucky in having a UK manufacturing facility with ample space to meet day-to-day needs, so we’ve been able to deploy staff to posts more remote from one another than previously, reducing the chances of cross-infection.

Where feasible, personnel (including me) are working from home, using video-conferencing technology wherever possible to remove the need for face-to-face meetings and travel.

And like the others, we’re closely following Government and NHS guidelines in advising our staff on best practice in this very challenging time.

Stephen Tunnicliffe-Wilson at Inca: At Inca, we have decided to manage the crisis by considering first the safety of our staff and then the operations of our business. The last few weeks have seen a period of transition while many of us switched to working at home.

Other staff have been furloughed following the dramatic reduction in orders from our POP graphics customers. We also retain a small team attending site regularly to fulfil the remaining customer orders and continue “hands-on” business-critical activities.

Customer service and installations have reduced as a consequence of the travel limitations and reduced commercial activity, although we continue providing remote support to the majority of our customers who are still active.

Graham Kennedy at Ricoh:

Before the crisis, the 11 months of the last financial year was amazing and we were tracking significantly above budget expectations. 

However, since then, the commercial print and wide format markets have reduced on expectation for April through to June due to the crisis. Demand for commercial office technology and consumables is down, but on the other hand, the public sector is up and there are some signals of increases in demand for direct mail.  

From a wide format perspective, it has been inspiring to see PPE equipment production increasing with the making and cutting of PPE visors, and as some of our key client businesses such as Durst returning to production and committing to making masks for their local communities, this is heartening to see. For Ricoh wide format, our customers have been using our wide format kit to make PPE equipment while our Additive Manufacturing team has been designing and 3D printing visors and tooling for PPE manufacturing.

It has been a stressful time but across Europe, a 'staggered' return to productivity is already taking place and in Germany, Denmark and other countries, there are the green shoots of production and this will most certainly return albeit a slow but sure return to normalcy.

Neil Cook at GIS: This situation reinforces the need to have a diverse portfolio of customers across broad geographic regions and applications. Building resilience in any business is critical.
As the epidemic proceeds in waves across the globe, we will see the initially affected areas recover and business return. Being ready to respond from a supply aspect will be key to recovery.

We will eventually come out of this terrible situation ( we all hope! ) and we would expect that our industry will continue on a steady sustained growth curve, as previously expected. What areas are going to be particularly interesting for you in the next 12 months? Where do you see that growth of industry coming from? Do you think things will change? Have new opportunities opened up?

Arnaud Linquette at Memjet: Memjet's three single-pass inkjet platforms – DuraFlex, DuraLink, VersaPass – provide a solid foundation for OEM partners to meet their customers' needs for a variety of print applications regardless of company revenue, print volume, or market specialty.

Memjet technology can be part of a print solution for a variety of media types, including plain corrugated boxes, folding cartons, high-impact papers, flexible materials, shipping envelopes, and food and beverage labels as well as mailing and addressing. Of course, of all of these areas, packaging is expected to experience the biggest growth and it is a great opportunity for us and our OEMs.

We also foresee excellent opportunities in mature markets that are expected to evolve due to better technology. This includes Powered By Memjet solutions such as the OPHRYS IRICOLOR envelope printer from Varioprinting and the AlphaJET product by MGI. For instance, in the past, customized envelope printing was a time-consuming and expensive process, requiring the printer to order and inventory different types of pre-printed envelopes. Personalization was limited to what had already been preprinted on the envelopes. If any changes needed to be made — a likely event — the printer would need to reorder preprinted envelopes and discard the unused envelopes. The flexibility of the OPHRYS IRICOLOR inline envelope overprinter using DuraLink® technology changes the old paradigm and opens amazing opportunities. With DuraLink, the OPHRYS IRICOLOR ensures presses that produce full-color CYMK in offset-like quality and a maximum resolution of 1600 dpi.

For us, it will also be exciting to see Memjet technology used in new areas such as label-less automated printing production as per our recently released OPM LabelSaver; which integrates its robotic system with the Memjet-powered print engine and proprietary coatings to create a self-moving printer that shows the possibilities of label-less production.

We are also expecting opportunities in textile printing and growth beyond the press developed by MHM in Austria with our Memjet technology. Using our DuraFlex® platform, MHM developed a turnkey, retrofit garment-printing solution with the speed, quality, and ease of use garment manufacturers need to succeed in a changing market.

Basically, we are hopeful that this pandemic will come to an end soon enough to allow for all of us to go back to normalcy of life. In the process, we expect enormous opportunities for inkjet and for our company in areas like flexible packaging, textiles, and 3D printing.

Peter Saunders at Sun Chemical: Anything packaging orientated will do well due to the critical nature of packaging healthcare and food products. There is an increased need for these items currently due to lack of alternatives and a general survival instinct driving us to have more contingency stocks in our homes. Digital print has a real opportunity to capitalise through the need for packaging to be produced in small quantities with short lead times as well as lower immediate working capital cost for the purchasers of printed packaging. In particular, the more established digital labels market could see an immediate benefit. We have already seen the uplift in this market since late Feb and this increase looks to be continual.

For SunJet, we, of course, rely on the progression of our partner OEMs and, while those involved in packaging should see increased interest and demand in the coming months, there is, of course, going to be a delay in selling new machines caused by the lockdown due to the difficulties of being able to demonstrate their machines for several months, plus some hesitation in their customers willingness to invest in these uncertain times.

Simon Roberts at Integration Technology: As a business, we are continually looking at our technical knowhow to solve problems and we continue to have a clear focus on the print segment. However, we like to explore the possibilities of applying our technology to other challenges. In particular, with my background in Automotive we have a number of product developments in portable curing , these are applicable on coatings and paint and will continue to explore this and other areas with new ideas. A great example of this is our new hand held curing system for dent repair and filler finishing - our AC 850.

With the challenge of the Coronavirus, we have also developed a really exciting new product, a hand-held sanitiser using ultra-violet light to inactivate biomolecules and micro-organisms including Coronavirus.
This high-powered portable UVC rapid sanitiser, is compact, lightweight SubZero RS-170 and is designed for use on all surfaces in applications posing a high risk of public cross-contamination.

Target applications include ambulances and blue light services, buses, aircraft and cruise ship cabins, train carriages, and other public transport, and hospitals, schools, offices, and hotel rooms.

We had just started work on making portable versions of our products for use in markets other than just print.

When the rate of spread of Coronavirus became clear, priority was immediately given to this medical solution. UV is non-contact and allows widespread coverage so you get greater overall decontamination, faster, adds Simon. Watch this space for more information about this innovative new product!

Stephen Tunnicliffe-Wilson at Inca: Regarding inkjet activity – I think e-commerce packaging is of particular interest as this has dramatically increased following the temporary closure of most “bricks and mortar” retail. The surge in online shopping during the crisis also risks accelerating the long-term decline in physical retail stores, which could have consequences for POP graphics.
There are some niche areas which are benefiting directly from the crisis – I’ve heard of Italian doctors 3D printing respirator masks for instance. But I doubt this is a mass-market opportunity!

Graham Kennedy at Ricoh: For industrial inkjet, it has been an effective time for R&D and we expect to see the continued benefits of this in due course. So expect to see a raft of innovations perhaps later this year and early next. People have time and can collaborate online effectively. Necessity is the mother of invention!

Neil Cook at GIS: Probably it will it be more an issue of delay, rather than a radical change of direction. Investment decisions will be even more carefully considered by businesses, but if companies were interested in inkjet opportunities before COVID 19 then the original drivers and reasons for that interest are likely to still be valid – but cash (or rather the lack of it in the short term) may be the delaying factor.
The advantages of inkjet and inkjet hybrid systems are as valid post-Covid 19 as before. Growth trends we saw before COVID 19 in areas such as 3D, décor and packaging are likely to remain – but will be delayed.

Thanks to our contributors for Part 1 of our article – Managing the Crisis. The next segment with focus on the Future and how companies are going to Reboot their business.

If you would like to register for the free webinar on 30th April - The Future of Print after COVID 19 then register here.

Contributor Photos in order - Arnaud Linquette - Memjet, Neil Cook - GIS, Peter Saunders at Sun Chemical, Simon Roberts - Integration Technology , Stephen Tunnicliffe-Wilson at Inca Digital and Graham Kennedy from Ricoh.