Digital Printing Trends to Watch

The retail value of digital printing in North America is now over $30 billion per year, according to print industry trade association PODi. By 2020, Smithers Pira research group reported digital printing will reach 17.4 percent of the value and 3.4 percent of the volume of all the world’s print and printed packaging.

Color digital printing’s growth spurt is primarily the result of adoption of high-speed continuous feed color digital inkjet presses, for transactional, books, and direct mail applications, stated PODi.

Inkjet developments, however, are active for any type of printer—continuous feed and sheetfed, black and white and color, large monthly volumes to mid-size volumes, etc. “Inkjet is no longer just for the high volume transaction world but is now a key player in a variety of print markets,” said Michael Poulin, Director, Marketing Production Print Solutions, Canon Solutions America.

As the march to drupa 2016 continues, digital printing vendors and enthusiasts will be in high watch mode—especially as developments in the production speed inkjet arena show no signs of stopping. Vendors are offering inkjet machines with higher quality imaging, expanded color gamuts, and increased productivity and speed.

While many industry participants referred to drupa 2012, as “inkjet drupa,” it was really more about announcing the arrival of inkjet technology for the production printing market. Industry followers anticipate drupa 2016 to be about the vast improvements in inkjet technology, including the enhanced quality of the devices, new ink sets, additions to approved media lists, and new applications and segments that inkjet can serve.

“This drupa will show that not only has inkjet technology arrived, but it’s here to stay and have a profound impact on the market,” Poulin said.

"Production speed inkjet is highly likely to be featured extensively at drupa 2016,” agreed Craig Reid, Vice President - Digital Division, INX International Ink Co.

“Toner-based digital certainly still has its place for specific applications, but inkjet technology for printing onto far more than graphics and signage is in huge growth and entering most areas of industrial printing,” he added. “New inkjet inks along with the latest generation print heads and OEMs willing to build for specific applications are enabling inkjet to finally enter significantly more application areas. This includes industrial segments such as rigid and flexible packaging, direct-to-shape decoration of plastics and metals, flooring and wall coverings, as well as further expansion into a variety of textile applications."

Look for production inkjet machines to be faster, cheaper, and offer better quality—the big three factors PSPs are always on the hunt for.

“We’ve trained the market in the U.S.; every successive technology will have some sort of improvement here; cost savings in operation, enhanced benefits to image quality, or faster speed,” noted Ed Wong, Product Marketing, Ricoh Production Printing Business Group.

“PSPs are looking for one of those—or all three.”

Will Mansfield, Kodak Worldwide Director of Marketing, Inkjet Printing Solutions, noted that at Kodak, “we are hearing of the need for increased productivity to drive lower manufacturing costs, which in turn allows PSPs to move toward the digital process.”

Using production inkjet for a wider range of applications is also trending.

“Wider applications improve the revenue and profit of digital providers as well as technology vendors who serve them,” Mansfield said.

The larger the net of applications clients go after, the more there is to sell. This, in turn, improves page volume, ink consumption, and creates a positive snowball effect, fueling vendors’ development efforts to invest further in the process.

There is an increased use of hybrid production workflows, which lets PSPs make the best use of both analog and digital print systems. The idea is to leverage the incumbent technology – whether that be offset, gravure, or flexo, and adding inkjet where it can value, Mansfield explained.

For example, in Europe, retail flyers, such as for grocery stores, serve a highly segmented market. PSPs are able to run a flyer with the 2/3 of the content that is static on offset, for example, while the remaining 1/3 is customized based on language or geographic region and run inkjet.

“At drupa, Kodak will show attendees how you can take multiple streams, and run one web and one inkjet, and combine them to get best of both worlds,” said Mansfield.

The transition from commercial offset to continuous feed inkjet in general, and to the Pro VC60000 in particular, is happening at a much faster rate than expected, said Wong. The commercial offset printer “recognizes the additional value that inkjet can bring in terms of customization, variable data, and shorter runs,” he said.

Adoptees are also employing different routes to incorporating continuous feed inkjet; some are taking a slow-and-steady approach, looking to market only to current customers their expanding toolkit, while others are plunging right in, will full-blown promotional campaigns.

At drupa, Ricoh is delivering further enhancements to the Ricoh VC 60000, which “sets the bar high in terms of image quality; it’s what people have been waiting for,” said Wong.

Also answering the call for higher image quality is Kodak’s Ultrastream inkjet technology, which delivers smaller drop size and precise placement accuracy for higher resolution, clean lines, and additional detailed definition. Debuting at drupa, Kodak expects Ultrastream to broaden the range the range of digital inkjet applications: its writing system features a modular print head that can be implemented in varying widths ranging from 8 inches up to 97 inches to suit the specific application.

Answering the demand for higher productivity, Kodak is highlighting inline finishing with its Prosper 6000C press at drupa, showcasing a “virtual no-touch workflow. “There will be (figuratively) trees in one part of the booth and finished documents at the other with few touchpoints in between,” described Mansfield.

The press will run with a MEGTEC automatic roll splicer and multiple inline finishing solutions for two different applications; magazines and catalogs printed on lightweight coated paper and finished with a manroland web systems FoldLine, as well as commercial applications that will be post coated with an i-WEB post coater and finished with a VITS multicut variable servo sheeter.

The Paper Trail

Until somewhat recently, paper manufacturers were waiting to see where the demand was going to be, said Wong. “With the increase in demand for inkjet paper, it allows the paper mills to drive to economies of scale and lower the price to all customers. The trend we are seeing is vendors are providing a wider variety of substrates for inkjet; with more demand, they are manufacturing more.”
The Pro VC60000 allows PSPs to run a broad range of media that includes uncoated, coated offset, digital, treated, and recycled papers.

“With the VC60000, we can use a climbing agent (an optional undercoat) that allows the ink to adhere and print on offset coated stocks, Wong explained. “It’s not a change in the ink; it is just applying a different agent to printing beforehand.

In the US, the requirement for production inkjet to be able to print on offset coated stocks does not necessarily gel with reality, said Wong. Ricoh is finding that its basic inkjet treated papers are more popular than offset coated.

“Everyone was saying being able to run offset coated was the Holy Grail, but I am not seeing that demand in the US,” Wong commented.

One reason might be the cost difference between inkjet treated and coated offset is not as great as in other parts of the world, said Wong. There is about a 20 percent difference in the US. The question becomes, “Do I really then, want to mess around with offset coated, or just inkjet coated, which is optimized for inkjet and guaranteed to work?” Wong posited.

Kodak’s three-part strategy to the substrate issue includes the development of a technology that is able to print a wide range of papers; ongoing collaboration with paper mills to help with product development, with Kodak sharing its nearly 50-year inkjet knowledge base; and offering pre-treatment solutions – fluids –developed by Kodak for treatment of paper prior to running inkjet, and available to OEMs, customers, and paper manufacturers.

Canon Solutions America is highlighting at drupa 2016 Océ VarioPrint i300’s new ‘ColorGrip’ option, designed to extend the application spectrum of the press.

“ColorGrip is an inline paper conditioning step that expands the choice of media, enabling high quality inkjet print on commodity stock, from light to heavy weight, which would otherwise deliver unacceptable print quality,” Poulin said. “The introduction of ColorGrip allows PSPs to print on a wider variety of cost-effective papers, including standard uncoated and offset coated media, and to comfortably manage blended offset, toner and inkjet production without the need for different types of paper and without compromising on quality. Broadening the applications scope of the press, ColorGrip technology enables PSPs to increase print volumes and the range of jobs delivered on a single press platform.”

The Ink Tale

It is still true that the type of substrate and, of course, the application may very well define the type of ink that can or should be used,” said Reid. “With toner-based products, having a kind of digital coating proved to be needed for optimum performance. For inkjet, the expectation is more to make inks that will work with ‘off-the-shelf’ substrates."

The thing about ink is that the market wants something not only cheaper, but that also one dries quickly. There is a balance to maintain, though, because while the market wants something that is going to go on media and dry very quickly, if the ink dries too quickly, it can clog the print heads.

"With the greater number of substrates and applications, comes the greater challenge to have inkjet inks that are capable to perform at ever faster production speeds,” Reid remarked. “This requires substantial technology developments such as higher pigment loads, jetting consistency, drying and curing speeds, adhesion, flexibility after curing, and in the case of food packaging – compliance to strict regulatory requirements. No one ink suits all applications. So, a global ink manufacturer such as INX must have a large and strong R&D capability to work simultaneously on many projects at the same time. This includes emulsion-based pigmented water-based inks for coated media, UV curable inks - some requiring low migration characteristics - eco solvent inks, hybrid inks designed for specific applications, as well as primers and coatings."

Ink is central to Kodak’s development process, noted Mansfield.

In the interest of lowering manufacturing costs for its customers, Kodak is offering a higher optical density black ink specifically for publishing on traditional, lower-cost offset papers, for such applications as trade books.

Kodak is also looking to “blow open” the color gamut for label packaging applications, with its Extended Gamut + Varnish (XGV) technology demonstration for flexible films produced on narrow-web. Featuring seven of Kodak’s S-Series Printing Systems printing on flexible films, which are capable of printing CMYK and an extended gamut of CMYK plus orange, green and violet to match a broader spectrum of Panton Colors used in label or package printing, the demo will include an additional station printing water-based digital varnish.

Canon Solutions America will also debut an enhanced ink set for the Océ VarioPrint i300, designed to optimize the color reproduction achievable with the ColorGrip technology. The new generation inks will be introduced across the existing VarioPrint i300 customer base.

Also showing at drupa for the first time, Canon will showcase the Chromera ink set for the Océ ColorStream 3000Z Series. The high pigment load of the Chromera inks extends the application range of the press to lighter weight media with reduced ink showthrough, and enables the delivery of higher quality documents on uncoated or inkjet treated papers, said Poulin.

As the market grows, the trend is for production inkjet machines to support a wider range of applications.

"While tag and label has already begun to significantly go digital, other packaging applications such as rigid and flexible are now becoming not just possible for prototyping, but for small to medium volume production,” said Reid. “Direct-to-Shape – printing directly onto anything and everything - is growing extensively, with inkjet as integrators helping design and build custom solutions for high-speed production. Digitally printed textile applications continue to grow each year. Typical graphics and signage may not be growing at the percentage it was years ago, as so much of it has already been converted to inkjet production, but it continues to thrive and demand better quality and faster speeds."

Ricoh’s strategy for the VC60000 is to “build on our successful platform and deliver even more value to our customers,” said Wong.

To that end, the VC60000 now offers a print speed of 150 meters per minute, up from 120. CMYK Parking allows PSPs to figuratively put the color print heads aside for black-and-white print applications, making it more cost effective. Also, the maximum print length has been expanded, from 26 inches to 54 inches, of larger signatures and support of longer applications.

“We are not trying to replace offset, but to position the VCF 60000 as a supplement to offset,” said Wong. “While the VC60000 delivers really excellent quality, in some applications it is not going to rival offset. Instead, it allows customers to penetrate into new applications to add value to their customers.”

In addition to applications such as book, direct mail, and transactional printing, on the growth track for production inkjet, newspaper printing is also migrating to the technology, reported Mansfield. “There is no doubt that the newspaper print model is under pressure, but there are pockets around the world, such as Asia and Europe, where the model is not in the same dire straits as in North America,” said Mansfield. “We are seeing an increase in inkjet adoption, and a migration away from coldest and heatset.”

The need for a more cost-effective production method is driving the move. “Inkjet fits that bill; it bolsters their revenue and allows newspaper publishers to customize their papers,” said Mansfield. Inkjet is being used for the entire print run or as part of a hybrid system.

Inkjet is also an ideal replacement for heatset web production of retail flyers, said Mansfield, allowing more microzing, shorter runs, and when data does exist, true variable-data printing, “ at 300 meters per minute on the Prosper Press 6000, on coated stock, glossy papers, with full ink coverage.”

Also, catalogs and magazines are moving to inkjet, “because of the high levels of productivity and low operation costs of Prosper Press,” he added.

And finally, with the new availability of seven color gamut printing – packaging and labels are projected to also migrate to inkjet.