Under the Hood with Fujifilm Ink Solutions Group

Fujifilm is a brand I was aware of before even joining the print industry when I was a young person. In the good old days when cameras ran only with real film that required developing into photographs, Fujifilm was a trusted brand that enabled you to get your snaps from holidays or special occasions. Hence, as a business, its roots for imaging go back a long way. And as a result, their propensity borne out of necessity for successful adaptation has been a key instrument of success, particularly when comparing the relative decline of other big names from that period such as Kodak. Fujifilm remains a big success with a global revenue of $21 Billion and has achieved this by adapting, innovating and developing core technologies in Diagnostic systems, Life Sciences, Electronic Materials, Document Solutions and Photo Imaging.

Fujifilm Ink Solutions Group Richard Fisher shows off the new equipment which is designed to help customers with their application development

For one of my first visits for quite some time, I headed out to Broadstairs, in Kent, UK, to visit one of the sites of Fujifilm’s Ink Solutions Group. A relatively newly formed business unit, they are focused on external inkjet sales, supplying inks and inkjet pigment dispersions for commercial, packaging, sign and display, textile and industrial markets. I've known the team there for some time, as they were a key part of the founding group for both the InPrint Show and more latterly, FuturePrint.

But there were considerable differences when compared with my last visit back around 2017. This change apparently started with a change in leadership at the business when COO Ian Wilkinson joined. In my discussions with the team, the positive energy was palpable, and the clarity of purpose energising. With new recruits such as Neil Cook heading the push into packaging for inkjet Inks, there is clearly confidence for the business to succeed in new and exciting markets such as packaging.

As Michael Bush, Marketing Communications Manager explains, “We’re dedicated to the sustainable digitisation of primary print markets with high performance inkjet inks and dispersions.”

Leadership

COO, Ian Wilkinson, has made a significant difference according to the team. Leadership defines a culture. And a people-first approach has created a tone whereby the commercial team, which is a relatively small one given the size of the business, works well together in a mutually supportive way. While there are clearly significant targets and demands, there is a sense of support in place for the team so that they can perform at their best and that their targets while challenging are not so daunting they are critically judged every step of the way.

As Ian says, “Our goal is to advance inkjet printing by delivering specialised ink technologies and services that enable our customers to produce world-class inkjet printing products.”

In addition to a customer-facing culture, people are clearly a key concern for the business as is work-life balance. A happy workforce tends to result in a happy customer base. It is a simple yet powerful principle.

Development

A key member of the team that I met for the first time is Richard Fisher, Head of Application Development in the Ink Solutions Group. With a design, then print validation background, Richard has a set of skills perfect for helping customers make the right decisions. The team Richard heads up has the focus of helping customers with their application development, not just the ink, but rather helping the customer understand what it is they need and what they could do to optimise their success. The thinking is that customers, when adopting inkjet and introducing a new ink, can avoid a lot of problems if application development is given equal focus as inkjet ink and machinery development. Richard’s application team, with their experience of combining technical and market knowledge, offers unique value to customers as an extra resource to help to ensure ink projects are successful.

As Richard explains, “My team provides customised assessments, early evaluation, testing and validation of Fujifilm inkjet inks to help our customers achieve their goals in inkjet.

The team covers our global customer base and takes the lead on:

• Technical specialists who guide and support the customer’s ink project to success.

• Complete understanding of inkjet printing, application, ink and requirements of the system.

• Expertise in all areas of ink interactions with the system and substrate.

• Working closely with the customer’s technical team.

• Support, educate and share techniques for success.

• Ensure effective collaboration between customers and Fujifilm R&D.

• Working  closely with our customers to understand the market requirements for any given development.”

Richards' team is positioned to work in collaboration with the technical and commercial teams to give customers a rounded service that effectively integrates a new ink into their production. It's added value, it's as simple as that, across many inkjet print applications, from flexible packaging to home textiles.

And Fujifilm manufacture a lot of ink.

Aqueous manufacturing capacity totals 20 million litres per year with batch sizes ranging from 200 to 22,000 litres, with scale-up capability. For UV inkjet inks the facility in Broadstairs with an 8000 metric tonnes per year capacity, 70 kg to 4 tonne batches. It's a serious scale of production, but still the individual customer is central.

Investment in application equipment

In order to help customers further, FISG has also invested in bespoke, cutting edge inkjet printing equipment that will help development, validation and demonstration of inks for new applications. Customers will be able to see inks on dedicated machinery as it applies to their requirements. Again, a commitment to helping customers make the right decisions while equipping them with the necessary confidence to know they have covered everything they need to before placing a machine with new ink into a production environment. Put simply, this will help accelerate the time to market.

As far as I can tell this is a unique benefit of working with Fujifilm and there will be more news in 2022 of what exactly this entails and how this looks for partners of Fujifilm. But suffice to say I think it will have a lot of value to offer customers that want to invest but need as much support, insight and reassurance they need to make the right decisions that are well informed from the start.

So watch this space. This little look under the bonnet was an inspiring first step, and as more news materialises over the coming weeks and months, we expect to see FISG continue to help inkjet to develop and grow, and in particular in the world of packaging.

Check out the website here.

For more information contact Michael Bush via email: michael.bush@fujifilm.com