FuturePrint Podcast
FuturePrint is dedicated to and passionate about the power of print technology to enable new opportunities and create new value. This pod features deep-dive discussions with the people behind the tech as well as market analysis, trends, marketing and storytelling!
FuturePrint Podcast
#229 Inside Domino’s Centre of Excellence: The Future of Digital Label Printing
Join us as we welcome Naomi Hofman, Digital Label Press Manager at Domino Printing Sciences. In this episode we delve into the cutting-edge world of digital label printing and discover more about Domino's Centre of Excellence in Nieuwegein, near Utrecht, which serves as both a state-of-the-art demonstration facility and a hub for customer engagement. Naomi shares how this unique space helps businesses explore the full potential of digital printing technology, offering hands-on experience with a wide range of solutions.
During the discussion, Naomi highlights the N730i, Domino’s latest advancement in label press technology. She explains how its 1200 DPI BitStar printheads, nozzle compensation features, and 70m/min print speed make it a game-changer in the industry. Additionally, she sheds light on the benefits of inline RIP technology through Domino’s Sunrise Digital Front End (DFE), which significantly reduces processing time for variable data printing.
The conversation also explores the versatility of Domino’s presses, capable of printing on substrates ranging from ultra-thin films to heavy-duty materials. Naomi discusses the role of hybrid printing configurations, enabling businesses to integrate flexographic elements for enhanced production flexibility.
Beyond the technology, Naomi shares insights into how the Centre of Excellence fosters stronger relationships between Domino and its customers. With frequent client visits and live demonstrations, the facility plays a crucial role in guiding businesses towards smarter, more efficient printing solutions.
Whether you’re in the print industry or simply curious about the future of digital label printing, this episode provides a fascinating look into the innovations shaping the industry. Tune in now to hear Naomi’s expert perspective on the exciting developments at Domino’s Centre of Excellence!
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Welcome to the Future Print Podcast, celebrating print technology and the people behind it.
Speaker 2:Well, hi and welcome to this week's Future Print Podcast. With myself, Fraser Chesterman, and I have Naomi Hoffman, who is Digital Label Press Manager of the Centre of Excellence for Domino Printing Sciences. Is that right? Have I got that all right?
Speaker 3:You have got that all right, Hello everyone.
Speaker 2:Good to speak to Naomi. It's lovely to be having a chat with you because you know I've had heard some great things about you and we really want to get a bit of a understanding of what goes on behind the scenes with your centre of excellence in. I think it's near Utrecht, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we are close to Utrecht. It's called Nieuwegein. It's pretty hard to pronounce if you're not Dutch.
Speaker 2:So, listen, let's find out a bit about you. First, naomi, tell me a little bit about your role, tell me a bit about how you came to be working at Domino, and then we'll go from there.
Speaker 3:Well, my name is Naomi Hoffman. I'm 28 years old, so quite young in this industry. Years old, so quite young in this industry. I started working at domino almost two and a half years ago, and before that I was working at a digital printing company for sheets, so business cards, etc, etc yep so basically, I've been around digital printing for seven, almost eight years and I was like at my old company, I want to grow.
Speaker 2:And then Domino came and they promised me a few things, and here you go two and a half years later and still there you're still here, yeah, which is brilliant and, as you said, quite unusual to have someone young and a woman in the industry who's already got a lot of experience. So that's nice to hear. Firstly, just tell us a bit about the Centre of Excellence. What is that and what's the purpose of it? How does it look? How does it feel?
Speaker 3:Well, the Centre of Excellence is basically for customers to come over and look at the presses, of course, that we have over there, but it is for digital, so full color labels, and also for the monochrome site, so barcodes and everything else.
Speaker 2:So as soon as the digital printing part, and what, in terms of what you think is the sort of strengths of of having a center of excellence where you can show the technology. What's the kind of purpose and what are the strengths of it?
Speaker 3:the biggest strength is when a customer comes over, and I'm just giving an example a customer comes over and would like to see the n7 or an n6, for example.
Speaker 3:He comes in, he has a whole production and he's like oh, wait a second, you guys also have the k600 there, which is black only. Oh, maybe that's interested for me as well. So the customer can look at both sides, which is the biggest strength of a center of excellence, but also the fact that we let them feel themselves welcome, make them able to show, to see everything, and that is the hardest part if you don't have a centre of excellence like we have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know I'm kind of interested, obviously, in the N730i and what it does. We've seen it with FuturePrint when we went to look at one in action in the UK. But just tell us a bit more about the series, the N series machines. What do they do? Tell us a bit more about the series, the N-series machines, what do they do? Tell us a bit about the heads. Tell us about what's exciting about the technology.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm pretty excited to tell you about the.
Speaker 2:N7, so don't worry about that Good to hear.
Speaker 3:No, the N730i is our latest N-series. Basically, it runs at the speed of 17 meters per minute with all colors so including all white, which is quite special.
Speaker 3:actually, our N7 also has broader bit star heads which is specially made for the 1200 dpi, but they also include some kind of special future things such as the nozzle compensation. So if you lose a nozzle, you don't have to worry about it, because you can compensate with the heads, meaning you can just basically continue on compensating and you don't have to replace the heads. Also, what I really love about the n7 is how easy it is to basically say okay, I want to print something. It's so easy, so easy to learn. The press is so stable. You don't have to worry about anything yeah, yeah, that's good, isn't it?
Speaker 2:that makes life a lot easier for the, for the people in production. It really makes life a lot easier. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good, isn't it? That makes life a lot easier for the, for the people in production it really makes life a lot easier, yeah, yeah, and I guess when, when customers come in, they, they see that and feel that, do they?
Speaker 3:they get an understanding for the advantages the machine has they really do and they keep on being impressed by the fact how easy it is and also how the N7 is behaving, the silentness the more ink into the system, everything around it. But the special part is the R-scan, especially because 17 meters per minute is quite fast for the eye, yeah yeah, yeah. I tried it, but it's not working, unfortunately, for my eyes.
Speaker 2:So the R-scan, just tell me a bit more about that.
Speaker 3:So with the R-scan, as I mentioned, 70 meters per minute is quite fast for the eye. So with the R-scan there is a possibility of image capturing, so it captures every print that you are printing currently, but it can also be for VDP jobs trying to see if the barcode or the person's name is exactly the same as the database QR codes. You can read if it's still okay or is it not readable, and you can really pack out quite a lot with the R-Scan. There are so many features to it, which is a huge plus for the 70 meters per minute.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you sense are the major applications for this technology?
Speaker 3:How do you?
Speaker 2:mean with that? Well, I mean so. I've seen it being used in corrugated on corrugated board. What other applications are there? Are there other applications? Do you see it as focusing on on boxes, cartons, pop, what's what's the feeling?
Speaker 3:the feeling with the n7 is more that you're talking about, uh, email, so very thin media, let's say roughly around 40 microns up to 400 or even a bit higher, depending if it goes through the press, of course. But then you have different kind of medias. You have silver, you have paper, you have a PE or a clear media which is quite good for the double bar white. So the range of the N7 is very, very, very high.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's quite broad, isn't it? It's not it. As a digital piece of technology, it can be used in lots of different ways it can.
Speaker 2:It really can be used a lot of different ways, especially if you have the ones with the flex units as well in there, then you can even go higher than that if you go for the hybrid version, you can imagine how big the line will be with everything behind it yeah, yeah, of course, just thinking so people who are thinking about your center of excellence how big is this and how many machines have you got in there? What just give us a feeling of, of you know this sort of the way it's used?
Speaker 3:I will give a tiny little walkthrough, but then try to explain it in words, which can be a bit hard that's all right, we'll listen so as soon as you enter the building you get a welcoming screen with the name of the customer on there. If you go to the left a little bit you'll see on the left side all the k-series, so the monochrome side.
Speaker 3:So on the left side we have roughly around three to four presses well, well if the customer walks a little bit to the center of the building, there are some lounge places that the customer can sit, drink a cup of coffee whatsoever and also and here comes the fun part a print bar. Of course you have to have a print bar and on the other side we have uh three n series standing, so three auto machines yeah two are the n610i and one of them is my lovely n730 and a little bit back.
Speaker 3:So if the customer is going out, or almost out, over there we have, uh, one room where the customer and the sales people can sit down, have a chit, chat, listen to the presentation and everything else. So that is a bit roughly the center of excellence yeah, yeah, yeah, that's quite interesting for us to hear.
Speaker 2:So, um, I think you've mentioned to me in the past about the inline rips. Why is this so important?
Speaker 3:so, um, since roughly one and a half two years ago, we launched our own d, which is the front end, of course, and it's called Sunrise Yep. So if customers are printing VDP jobs, so virtual oh sorry, I lost my mouth a little bit Variable data.
Speaker 2:I think you were going to say, weren't you, Thank you. I think we knew where you were going.
Speaker 3:When a customer has that it can contain more than 2,000 or even 10,000, 100,000 records.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, different records.
Speaker 3:Definitely different records but it takes a lot of time ripping. So if a customer has 100,000 records it takes roughly around one and a half two hours ripping and then the customer still needs to print it. With the inline rip of Sunrise that comes with the N730i it is possible to print and rip at the same time. So the customer that normally loses one and a half to two hours ripping the job and the ripping will be done at the exact same time yep so if it takes four hours in total for that one specific job, yep, it will be less in two hours yeah, yeah, it's good, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it's good, it is really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, really good. Um, you mentioned when you were sort of doing a little intro that you um, you've previously been in kind of pre-press and design and things, so that was your background. How much of that kind of comes through in what you're doing now?
Speaker 3:um, let's say a bit of 50 50 because previously at my old job I I was doing pre-press area. So then you know a lot of color management and the DFE parts, which is a huge plus if you do use the DFE's. But the machine area and the inkjet area was completely new for me, yeah, yeah. There's a different kind of technology if you compare that to sheet printers.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. And I mean obviously you've probably got a little bit of interest in sort of design and samples and artwork and some of the sort of you know the kind of more creative aspects.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is, and also because every PDF file that we receive from the customer, I'm looking at it, see if everything is okay for our presses and that the customer basically gets what he is giving us. So I'm really happy about the fact that I'm looking at the pdf file, I'm checking. If it's not correct, I will answer back like okay, can I receive a new one? Of course. Then I walk over to the press because I'm making the samples for the customers and start printing them. So basically I'm looking what did I receive from the customer and do I give the customer back what they give to me, which is a huge plus for myself because I love to give customers good and perfect samples.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's nice to hear. As you said yourself, it's the center of excellence you're working for. It's. You know it's the centre of excellence you're working for, and I'm just I'm kind of intrigued in a way at how valuable this is to Domino and the way you know. You can obviously see this. You said yourself you're quite young in the industry, but you've been doing this for a few years, so you've kind of got a perception of value in terms of what the Centre of Excellence can do. How do you sense that, how important this is on a kind of European scale in terms of relationship with customers, in terms of opportunities to show your technology, working up that relationship? How often have you got people in, for example? How have you got people in today, for example?
Speaker 3:Well, we had our own colleague. Customers were not in today, they will be in tomorrow.
Speaker 2:That's pretty good. I mean to be honest with you. It's a bit unfair to say have you got anyone in today? You straightaway batted back and said no. Tomorrow, though, we've got people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, so it really depends. Of course, if there are some vacations whatsoever, then it is a little bit less. But overall, uh, let's roughly say from the 20 days that we are open, I can almost guarantee you 10 days or even 11 days are full, that people are coming over, sure, looking at the press or have a chit chat, and it's also a very good place for the salespeople to come by with their customer and you can basically create the bond that you have with them higher.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, definitely. It's a good thing, isn't it? It's a very good part of the selling process, but it's also about relationship, isn't it, as you said? And also, I'd imagine you get to hear what customers think, so it kind of gives you feedback, doesn't it, as you said? And also I'd imagine, um, you get to hear what customers think, so you know it kind of gives you feedback, doesn't it?
Speaker 3:it gives you feedback and it gives you more knowledge. And how do the customers are thinking? How do these people are thinking? It's a strong thing about their bond, but it is also that you know a customer can see their own samples and they're like, oh, it looks good, but you want to impress themselves, you want to be like OK, we want to show them how it looks. And, in my opinion, if you have the center of excellence with the presses over there, the customer can come in, see it, run, basically smell the air and smell their label. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. No, you're absolutely right. I think it's very valid there. So your role is digital press, digital label press manager. I've got that right, haven't I? Yep, correct, so tell me, do you? Are you focused just on labels or the? You know the? It's obviously broader than that in terms of the offering for the technology it's a broader.
Speaker 3:So basically I'm doing the samples, so I'm creating them, shipping them over. I'm also doing the demos. So if the customer comes over, I give them an overview of the press, tell them every detail about the press itself and also run it. But there is a lot more that comes behind it Also doing a few testings here and there, making sure everything looks proper, et cetera, et cetera. You always think, okay, those are the two biggest things, but there is always a whole package behind it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely no. I mean, it's been really interesting having a chat with you. If you were trying to encourage people to come and have a look, what would you say? You know key things. If people are interested in getting involved and kind of seeing the center of excellence, how do they get in contact with you?
Speaker 3:They can contact me through my email address. So that is naomihoffman at dominobainaluxcom. Brilliant, and I would love for you guys to come over and have a chit chat with me and that I'm able to show you the press. Yeah, feel free to come. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:I think people will be very interested to take you up on the offer there. Thank you very much for giving us your time, really appreciate that and I hope to catch up with you soon, certainly future. We'd be really pleased to come out and have a chit chat, as you say, a look around, maybe do some videoing and and see what you've got in place there. Thank you very much. Now I mean, it's been really interesting you're welcome, take care, okay, bye thank you for listening.
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