Slotex Expands Offering with Agfa’s Water-Based InterioJet Printer for Laminate Surfaces

Slotex, a leading Russian supplier of decorative laminate solutions, recently installed Agfa’s InterioJet water-based inkjet printing engine. The InterioJet enables them to provide a high level of reliable service for each client.

Slotex offers a wide range of state-of-the-art decorative solutions – from printed papers to impregnated papers to HPL (high-pressure laminate) and finished panels – for various applications including furniture manufacturing, interior decoration, public transportation, car assembly, and even shipbuilding.

As a customer-oriented company, Slotex strives for the continuous improvement, innovation and expansion of its decorative solutions. Slotex’ aim is to provide its customers an individual approach through an exclusive product. Agfa’s InteriorJet proved to be perfect fit as it enables the company to print short runs of various decors that are being developed by its design team.

Vadim Osipov, CEO of Slotex, explains: “In the past, with our gravure press, we needed to print a minimum of three tons of paper, which meant we had to keep some designs in stock for many months or even years. Now we can print the exact volume we will convert to e.g. kitchen panels in the same month. Agfa’s InterioJet enables us to diversify our offering with more designs and to respond faster to our customers’ demands.” He adds: “Print quality and color reproduction are brilliant as well as consistent. The InterioJet’s prints perfectly match those of our gravure press as the Agfa inks use the same pigments, and thanks to the cross-technology color management built in Agfa’s Asanti workflow software, which handshakes with the industry-leading CAD CAM software from AVA. The inks are fully compatible with all subsequent impregnation and lamination processes.”

“We are honored that Slotex has opted for our InterioJet printing solution,” says Tom Cloots, Director Industrial Inkjet for Agfa. “The installation was delayed due to the Covid crisis, but over the past six months the engine was located at our headquarters in Belgium, where our teams printed jobs for Slotex so they could supply their markets. This illustrates our commitment to be a true partner for our customers; they can count on us to help them out in difficult times.”

The InterioJet was installed mid-March at Slotex’ Saint-Petersburg premises. The installation went fluently with the online and on-site help of respectively Agfa’s headquarters’ and local support teams.

“We could start producing 24/7 right away, as all designs had already been adapted to digital printing by Agfa,” says Osipov. “The InterioJet has already proved to be perfectly reliable.”

More about the InterioJet

Agfa introduced the InterioJet to market in November 2020, and is convinced that its flexibility will accelerate the transformation from analog to digital printing in the laminated surface market.

The eco-friendly water-based inkjet press can print on two rolls of decor paper simultaneously – each with a width of up to 155 cm and a weight of up to 600 kg – at a speed of up to 340 m² per hour. It excels through its superior contrast, sharpness, and color saturation, matching typical decorative industry color profiles.

The InterioJet print system was developed by Agfa inkjet engineers at Agfa HQ in Belgium. The InterioJet ink set is a water-based ink set uniquely designed for the printer and existing lamination production workflow meeting all laminate quality requirements; these Agfa inks are developed and produced also at Agfa HQ.

About Slotex

Slotex is an industry-leading Russian supplier of decorative surfaces, furniture components and finishing materials. Founded in 1990, the company builds its success on four pillars: quality, innovation, partnership and a customer-oriented approach. Slotex is an active participant of the European ICDLI Association.

Slotex creates products for a wide Russian dealer network, for large industrial customers on the Russian market, and for customers throughout the world.

The main sources of inspiration for Slotex are nature and its partners. One of the recent developments is Slotex’ new decor collection. At the heart of the collection is a spring heyday of nature. With the help of modern technologies many decors recreate the structure and colors of fancy marbles and rare wood. Addition of such designs in the interior space allows one to enjoy the natural wonders of the world while leaving them intact.

http://laminates.slotex.com/en/ and https://kitchen.slotex.com/ru/