IMI Europe Digital Printing Conference
INKJET market and technology Advances
11-12 May 2022
Novotel Barcelona City Hotel, Barcelona, Spain
The IMI Europe Digital Printing Conference is the flagship strategic conference for the inkjet industry, trusted as a primary source of high value information by senior executives and commercial managers for more than 20 years. This two-day event includes the following elements:
Market briefings from leading analysts
Updates and views from industry pacesetters
Perspectives from key end users
New technology introductions from inkjet innovators
As well as formal presentations, the conference programme includes panel sessions covering key topics, with the panels comprising and chaired by industry leaders.
Represented companies:
DoDxAct * Dyndrite * Habasit * Hybrid Software Group * Integration Technology * IT Strategies * Kronos * Meteor Inkjet * Quantica * SPG Prints * Sun Chemical * TriJet * Unilin
Additional Benefits
NEtworking
The IMI Europe Digital Printing Conference gives you the opportunity to meet senior executives from within the inkjet industry as well as from companies using the technology or developing it for their use. With two networking lunches, an evening reception and additional refreshment breaks, there is ample opportunity to meet with key people.
Sponsor Exhibits & Forum
Event sponsors will have their products and technology on display in the breakout area, and the Sponsors' Forum enables you to hear short presentations from sponsors on their company and latest news. If you are interested in becoming an event sponsor, please visit our sponsorship page.
Strategic Advisory Board
The conference programme of topics, panel discussions and presentations are selected by the Strategic Advisory Board of industry luminaries whose expertise covers a wide range of technology and applications in digital printing. Strategic Advisory Board members are as follows:
Tracey Brown, Director of Strategy & Marketing, Meteor Inkjet
Peter Saunders, Global Director - Digital Businesses, Sun Chemical
Holly Steedman, Business Development Manager, Integration Technology
Dr Kurt Fischer, Managing Director, Technical Conference Management (TCM)
Marco Boer, Vice President, IT Strategies
The Advisory Board is chaired by Tim Phillips of IMI Europe.
Conference Programme
WEDNESDAY 11 May 2022
Cost effective high volume digital printing solution to print on décor paper for laminate production
Jasmine Geerinckx, Business Development Manager IP, Unilin Technologies
Digital printing has mayor key advantages over traditional gravure printing such as short set-up time, reduced stock, variable run-lengths and personalized printing with a limitless amount of design choices allowing fast following of trends.
During this lecture we will explore the different technologies and their economical and productivity solutions available in the laminate market using roll2roll digital printing solutions and texturing possibilities.
How to integrate inkjet into the Smart Factory
Nick De Roeck, CTO, Hybrid Software Group
Integrating inkjet printing into a Smart Factory requires a rethink in the software and hardware stack. If you’re planning to do it you need to build in capability that can deliver everything from mass production to mass customization at the same cost as current print systems. You’ll need a fully automated Digital Front End (DFE), connected to the rest of the production system via Industry 4.0 technologies like OPC UA, (the open standard for information exchange for industrial communication). This talk explains how to create the Smart Factory’s print subsystem using AI to power its components.
Paper supply chain instability and its implications on the print industry
Marco Boer, Vice President, IT Strategies
Demand for direct mail, book printing, and other applications is surging as we slowly start to exit COVID. But there is a new challenge: paper supply chain instability. There isn't enough paper. The core roots to this crisis date back more than a decade, as demand for writing paper has been in decline for 10 years. Mills closed or where converted to packaging papers, driving up writing paper prices. Paper imports increased supply and mitigated price increases, but as COVID hit imported paper disappeared. This has let to less supply, and higher prices. This session will discuss when the supply chain can be expected to stabilize, and what it means for print providers and digital printer manufacturers.
Panel Session 1: Industrial printing - where next?
The panel will be chaired by a member of the Advisory Board, and include industry experts from the conference Strategic Advisory Board and conference presenters.
Digital Textile Printing - what's next on the horizon?
Jos Notermans, Business Manager Digital Textile Inks, SPG Prints
Last year it was 30 years ago that former Stork (now SPGPrints) launched the first digital textile printer, running 1 square meter per hour. Since then we have gone through a lot of focus items (or buzz words?): printing speed, reliability, ink versatility, printhead warranties, single pass printing and recently terms like sustainability and near-shoring are the talk of the town. But what to expect for the years to come? New printhead technologies? Final breakthrough of pigment printing? Better match to conventional printing? SPGPrints will address the main trends they are seeing in this (hopefully) post-COVID period and how digital textile will develop over the next 3-5 years.
Digital textiles – market trends and strategies to meet the challenges of sustainability
Dr Simon Daplyn, Manager - Product Marketing, Sun Chemical
The textile industry has been under pressure to clean up its act for a number of years with many leading brands introducing sustainability commitments and standards to reduce the overall impact of textile decoration on the environment. In parallel, consumers are making more conscious decisions about how and what they buy. This leaves the brands and their downward supply chain with a decision pathway to manage in terms of material and technology selection to meet the demands of the market. This talk will look at the industry trends, the impact they have on printers, the challenges of sustainability and how digital printing is placed to meet them.
Industrial inkjet for direct to shape applications
Martin Duda, Technical & Commercial Consultant, Meteor Inkjet
The convergence of just-in-time logistics; in-line product customisation; and packaging reduction for environmental and cost reasons is presenting significant opportunities for bespoke, direct to shape industrial inkjet systems. With the evolution of inks, hardware and software, digital solutions previously considered out of reach are now a reality. This talk will cover
The latest industrial inkjet trends and technological innovations for direct to shape applications
Adding bespoke solutions to existing production lines
Transitioning from analog (pad or screen) to digital (inkjet)
Successes and challenges illustrated by real-world examples
Industrialising inkjet solutions in additive manufacturing
Stephen Anderson, VP Business Development, Dyndrite
Dahlon Lyles, Application Engineer, Dyndrite
As Additive Manufacturing develops, machines become larger, evermore complex and consume increasingly large datasets. Likewise, the design freedoms afforded by AM are creating significant challenges for CAD and AM CAM. In short: AM hardware has surpassed the software. This leads to broken AM workflows, production bottlenecks and waste, which prevents AM from taking its rightful place as a mainstream production tool. Dyndrite GPU technology solves these issues to handle largest datasets at scale and speed and enable automated AM serial end production. This presentation shows how Dyndrite is working to deliver an optimized 3D CAD-to-inkjet printhead development environment empowering OEMs to quickly invent new, more innovative raster inkjet machines.
Panel Session 2: Textiles and sustainability
The panel will be chaired by a member of the Advisory Board, and include industry experts from the conference Strategic Advisory Board and conference presenters.
Hear short presentations from the event sponsors.
Join us for wine, beer, canapés and good company!
THURSDAY 12 May 2022
A revolutionary new piezo inkjet technology and printhead capable of jetting extreme viscosity inks
Ramon Borrell, CTO, Quantica
Innovative start-up Quantica has devised a new technology using a novel operation mode for piezo inkjet printheads aimed at removing the viscosity limitations of current commercial printheads. Subsequently, a printhead using the new technology has been developed along with the necessary sub-systems for integration in a printer. The new inkjet technology brings a combination of advantages, the most relevant being the capability to jet extremely high viscosity fluids, combined with very high productivity per nozzle, very wide drop size control, and the capability to jet fluids with high particle load and large particle sizes. A family of 3D printers for advanced applications is being developed using the new printhead. Multiple other applications in graphics, construction materials, additive manufacturing and microfluidics will benefit from the unique qualities of the new technology.
Adapting inkjet to manufacturing needs
Dr Mark Bale, Director, DoDxAct
The successful application of inkjet printing technology in a variety of decorative and functional manufacturing processes involves combination of materials optimisations and process development, often by combining inkjet with other techniques to create a hybrid system. Using selected examples taken from our broad project experience we look at some of the typical challenges involved, ranging from print head jetability, through the control of print output through surface treatment & chemistry to the tailoring of equipment design to achieve specific requirements.
Differences in complex rheological properties of jetting & non-jetting high viscosity inkjet inks
Dr Tri Tuladhar, Trijet Limited
As the inkjet industry explores jetting of high viscosity and high solid loading inks, we find only limited high viscosity inks jet reliably well, whereas many others with similar bulk properties fail miserably. The complex dynamic properties of the ink are the key parameters affecting jetting behaviour. This has direct influence on printhead pumping capacity for drop ejection, in-flight jetting & break-up behaviour, meniscus damping profile post-jetting and ink channel re-filling capability. We will present complex rheological properties of inkjet inks at the timescale and geometry relevant to inkjet systems that identify subtle differences between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ inks. Understanding dynamic properties of inkjet inks will help to formulate reliable high viscosity inkjet inks and speed up waveform development.
Inkjet printing using belt-based substrate transport systems: key factors affecting performance and cost optimisation strategies
Luca Rovacchi, Innovation Business Case Owner, Habasit
Printing a substrate while transporting (and positioning) it using a conveyor belt has been done for a long time in the analogue printing world because of the numerous advantages of such a solution. Using the same transport advantages in the inkjet world is very desirable but involves a deep knowledge of such belt-based transport system in relation to the substrate to be printed. We will explore the key performance factors for the design of a high precision belt transport system as well as cost optimisation depending on the application.
Panel Session 3: Covid, raw material prices and other stresses
The panel will be chaired by a member of the Advisory Board, and include industry experts from the conference Strategic Advisory Board and conference presenters.
Novel aqueous white pigment concentrate for inkjet applications
Dirk Imhof, Technical Manager Coatings & Inks, KRONOS
Jürgen Bender, Market Development Manager, KRONOS
White TiO2 pigments are used in various printing ink technologies and applications. The demand of TiO2 pigments for digital printing inks is significantly increasing, primarily focused on packaging and textile applications. Moreover, we observe a need in the market place concerning optimized white pigments which fulfil the technical ink requirements such as an excellent storage stability level and highest opacity and whiteness in prints.
To answer these needs, KRONOS developed a novel white TiO2 pigment concentrate tailored for water-based inkjet technologies. The unique optimized TiO2 product exhibits a wide range of compatibility with various types of ink binders and additives and is compliant with Swiss Ordinance and Nestle regulatory guidance. In addition we will present the KRONOS stage-gate process that lead to this new product development from an idea to the final launch of KRONOS 9900.
The future is bright … the future is violet - LED curing technology in new markets and applications
Holly Steedman, Business & Technology Development Director, Integration Technology
UV LED curing technology is not a new concept in the printing world; it has been used extensively in wide format printing for many years now. However, there are still many opportunities for further adoption of LED. Take, for example, industrial printing, where LED curing is still being integrated into many applications: are there limitations? What are the reasons for the slow adoption?
We will also discuss the future of UV curing, including mercury lamps and the development of UVC, LED chips/diodes and how this will also shape the future of curing.