Groupthink and the Inkjet Arms Race

Technology is a wonderful thing. This is an assumption most people (myself included) tend to make. We live in a world seemingly defined by how clever technology is. How fast is the broadband, how many steps have we taken, how efficient is the MPG, what’s the carbon footprint etc. These days we can measure everything so easily.

It's true for print technology, and at the FuturePrint Tech Fest in particular, inkjet print technology. The performance of inkjet varies greatly. There’s fast, slow, high viscosity, through flow, drops of all sizes, drop on demand, continuous and there are TH6310, Starfire, Nitrox, Samba, and Gen 5 and too many more to list, but you get my point.  If I didn’t know better, I would say this is a veritable minefield?

Of course, there are so many options to address the multitude of purposes. A head that works for one application may be a disaster for another.

Regardless, at the Tech Fest, Richard Darling challenges us with a thought: 

What is the point in designing an F1 car for a job that a Volvo will do perfectly well? 

Easier and safer development, less maintenance, lower cost, more robust and durable and, frankly, often a better choice for a multiplicity of industrial applications.

Back at the FuturePrint Leaders’ Summit in March, we hosted a debate around the question

“Thin Film [SiMEMS] or Bulk Piezo?” The fantastic sophistication of thin-film inkjet printheads, their speed and quality of imaging can be wonderfully impressive. But speed is not always productivity and why invest in this when you don’t have to?

Groupthink may be partly to blame according to Darling as he believes it can lead to flawed innovation.

“When we get caught up with the cleverness of technology, we get an introverted culture of excellence that may not align to the needs of an industrial process, a market or customers. Technical excellence is fine, but should we drive an F1 car to the shops?"

It's a funny picture that it paints in your mind, but one that illustrates well how innovation can sometimes go off at a technical tangent.

Richard’s session talks about inkjet heads, innovation and what needs to be done to get the best results from a commercial perspective first, and a technical one second. Richard is a big believer in first principle thinking, stripping down the argument for a new idea to its core commercial offering. And asking why?

"I am a big supporter of innovation, but not just for the sake of it. Creating the wrong idea can slow progress and sometimes halt a project. There's an approach to making the right choices by solving the problems that matter on a commercial level. Sure, an F1 car is impressive but it's designed to whizz around a track for 2 hours on a Sunday. Its application outside of that is non-existent. Most of the time a Volvo, which can also be turbocharged, is far better placed to serve many purposes and many applications."

Check out Richards talk at the FuturePrint Tech Fest here