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
#273 Inkjet’s Next Gear: Pragmatism, Pace and Platforms — with Richard Darling, GIS
In this episode of the FuturePrint Podcast, Frazer Chesterman sits down with Richard Darling, Director of Sales and Marketing at Global Inkjet Systems (GIS), to explore where industrial inkjet technology really stands today — beyond the hype, beyond the headlines, and right at the heart of production.
With over 25 years in inkjet, including senior roles at Xaar and Ricoh, Richard brings a unique, long-term view of how the sector has evolved. Together, they unpack the key themes from LabelExpo Barcelona — from the rise of new single-pass platforms and the growing accessibility of high-performance machines, to the increasingly global mix of engineering and innovation shaping our industry.
They discuss why the label and packaging market feels more evolutionary than revolutionary, how cultural approaches to development differ across regions (Europe, China, Korea, India, the US), and why “speed to market” has become the new strategic advantage for converters and OEMs alike.
Richard also reflects on what makes GIS tick: a company best known for being “under the bonnet,” providing the drive electronics, ink systems and software that help print systems actually work. He explains why packaging that cleverness into accessible, easy-to-use platforms is now central to the next stage of digital print’s maturity.
The conversation covers everything from functional printing and EV applications to the realities of hybrid systems, localised manufacturing, and why another “ceramics moment” is unlikely — and unnecessary.
If you’re in the business of industrial print, labels, or manufacturing innovation, this episode offers rare clarity on where the opportunities lie — and what will really matter as inkjet moves into its next gear.
🎧 Listen now and discover why the future of inkjet isn’t just about speed — it’s about fit, flexibility, and systems that simply work.
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FuturePrint TECH: Industrial Print: 21-22 January '26, Munich, Germany
Well, hi there, and welcome to this week's uh Future Print Podcast. And this is always a fun one for me because I have Richard Darling with me. Many of you will know him. He has vast experience of our world, of the inkjet world, and he's at GIS now, and he is uh director of sales and marketing. Is that right, Richard?
SPEAKER_00:Correct, yeah, yeah. We always start these conversations, Fraser, with you saying how experienced I am. And and that's a euphemism for being old. I've been in the game rather a long time, but not for me to say.
SPEAKER_01:Not for me to say. Actually, we will we will find out how long you've been in in the industry because I I want to dig a bit deeply into your your knowledge of the past. Um, today's conversation. I think we were thinking we would cover off Label Expo, which was a couple of weeks ago, as you know. Um, both of us were there. Uh, you wanted to talk a little bit about what you saw. I think it was interesting just before we started recording what you were saying. And then we want to go a little bit broader into thinking about the inkjet world in a geocultural kind of way, and thinking about the markets that exist out there, the Chinese market, the Indian market, and obviously a US and Europe. Um, so we're gonna we're gonna have a nice free-flowing conversation today. Richard, for anyone who doesn't know you, which I'd be really highly surprised, just tell us who you are and a little bit about your background.
SPEAKER_00:Um the who I am. Oh, god, that's a difficult one. I've been uh I'm I'm actually fascinated by the technology of Inkjet. Um, there's I said to somebody in a meeting that um uh I love printheads, and I was talking about printheads and how they work and which ones do what in what what way. And um obviously I was a little bit too passionate in this um situation because then I've had the Mickey taken out of me since for being being passionate about printheads. But I I I've worked for two printhead manufacturers before that Xerox. I I've been an inkjet for a long time, 25 more years, um, something like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um but first with Czar, then Rico, um uh both happy times. And uh as I say, I love it. Now in GIS, uh chat it was an offer too good to refuse to take on the challenge of GIS, which is it's a small company that's known all over the world for what it does, um uh but but still quite small. And it's because it's very specialized on supporting all of the printheads. So now I'm kind of happy because I'm uh I'm able to deal with all the printheads and all of the different applications that they serve. Um uh it's it's it's always been the sort of company that's got lots of clever things but not communicated them very well to the outside or to the general market. So that's that's what that was that's what I've stepped into. Been here two years, and um uh I suppose the transformation is underway. But that's that's um that's that's who I am.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. For all of us, the transformation is underway. Um let's just have a look at what you what you were thinking about when you know just been to label expo, and and you and I were just chatting about where the market for the labels and packaging market, particularly the label market, is with Inkjet. Um, what did you see? What did you sense there? What did you feel about the the the kind of label and packaging market?
SPEAKER_00:And um, yeah, what what the kind of interesting things you did you get from it's it's kind of interesting that um uh you know, Drupal's the general print show that we had the first Drupal for eight years last year, and um going along to that, that's it's it's a vast exhibition. Um there's it's all about print, um, but it's the print is so wide that it's everything from office and coding and marking through to um uh the type of thing probably in the industrial sphere, which is uh single pass for various applications. There are probably half a dozen categories of including packaging. Label expo is is quite a focused exhibition by comparison, it in that it focuses you said label and packaging, but it's actually more labeled. There's a little bit of flexible packaging, but it doesn't go any further than that, really. But it's very much in the single pass applications um that uh that of they're a small subsection of what's a Drupal. Um uh it's still quite big. Um and first time Barcelona in its time, used to Brussels, um, with uh still had the same air conditioning challenges as I remember two years ago in Brussels. Um it was it was remarked that the the the HP stand was the coolest for lots of different reasons, yeah. Yeah, I who well I don't know what reasons might be, but it was just an observation that lots of people made. Um but it it's it's it was very very focused on the single pass um application of inkjet. Um but I I was there for the whole four days and I still didn't fit in everything that I wanted to do, everything I wanted to see, and all the people I did I wanted to talk to. So I I thought it was a really packed show. The footfall seemed pretty good. Yeah, that certainly the exhibitors, there was some there were some really good exhibits, there were some really good things showing, some new machines, some old machines, quite a lot of development of new things, I thought.
SPEAKER_01:What were highlights for you then? What what pick out a couple that you couldn't name?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the actual um displays. Um I I thought uh there's one one thing I'm in I'm interested in in the the accessibility of Inkjet. And um, I I saw some entry-level machines, uh Gallus, for example. Yep. Um uh and I'm I'm being non-party political here, and it's not nothing to do with whether GIS is in this or that or the other. Um, but the Gallus Alpha was uh I don't think it was a a sort of fully finished machine, but it's uh it's a concept that I I think it um was on display for the first time. That that's kind of interesting, Gallus getting into that position because they've always been at the top, premium end, and this is coming further down the pyramid, so I think that's an interesting one. Um uh I thought that uh they consider that to be entry-level, and I'm not sure how it compares, but there are other entry-level machines, Dantex.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um Pulisi, a Chinese machine. Um and it seems that you know it takes ages to develop something with a um with one specific selected head for a European OEM and uh or an American OEM. But uh in China, um uh if you ask a Chinese OEM, they they say what head would you like in it? And they they seem to be able to, or at least they're projecting that they're they're willing to consider whatever head you like, which I think is um it's completely the up the opposite. Um so that that was that was one feature, some of the uh some of those things. There were some some things going on with Koreans as well that that are behind the scenes. There's a lot of this is behind the scenes. So you get the face of the Western OEM with something behind. Um, and I probably better not go into any specifics there, but I think other people may have discovered some of those things. Yep. Um but it's it's it was uh I thought it was vibrant, and there's there's uh you and I were both involved in signing graphics um years before when so the inkjet had no chance because the screen guys said I'd never catch on. Um but then over the years it did catch on and it turned into a frenzy of development where it was very vibrant, new offerings coming from entry-level, low uh low-cost entry-level um uh machines up to the highest productivity. Never quite strayed into a bit into single pass, but it was mainly scanning multi-pass, but some uh a vast array of machines from a vast array of machine providers, and um that's what um came of sign and graphics. Now I thought that label expo was sort of tending in that direction, actually. It was it was very vibrant, and um everybody in the industry is probably compared comparing themselves on, you know, it's it's not a question of whether or not to invest in digital. It seems to be that people are choosing between one and another. So it's a very competitive market, and that's got to sharpen people's focus and um make them conscious of margins.
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting what you say there, going back for both of us to that sort of 2003, four, five, six, seven, those kind of those days when we were young. When we were young, and when and when the kind of the digital wide format market was just going through the roof, wasn't it? You know, that there's so many people launching machines. You know, I remember let's say Vespa 20 2007, biggest FESPA ever, huge event, so many digital machine manufacturers there. And and and by that time, screen, you know, as you said yourself, you know, people like Searsprint and Svecia, these companies have been around for years, they're just gone. They're just gone. Um, it doesn't feel quite the same with the label market, it feels a bit different, it feels a little bit more evolutionary.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'd agree with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. It's and it's also uh slightly polarized because I think uh you know you can have this um uh technology fundament fundamentalism where you think that everything is going to convert to something or other. It doesn't work that way because the the uh the analog ways of printing flexo screen, rotary screen, that that they're actually good at many things that we consume, and and uh they'll uh there's no way that inkjet should sort of um try to be those things because it can't. Um if you've got long job runs and you you want to produce a lot of the same thing and you want to do it consistently and in a um uh an easy way, at low cost sometimes, you can do it that way, and there's nothing that inkjet could could could compete with. Um not everything is going to short run, and not everything needs to. And also, inkjet can go up the scale a bit, so there's an overlap, but there seems to be a an acceptance that um uh the traditional ways are good for some things, and inkjet is good for other things, and also that there's a a divide between companies that are set up to do certain things, um, like that's that suit more the digital. And I'll include there the the the indigos and the uh the other forms of digital besides Inkjet, yeah. Um and the companies that do it the way that it's always been done. Yeah. Um so I I think it's it's almost like a polarization or an acceptance that there are two ways to there's more than one way of of doing these things, and there's more than one market.
SPEAKER_01:Do you do you think speed to market is key now?
SPEAKER_00:Speed to market for well, I think speed to market for brands. Um if you go to the right to the end-end customer, speed to market for brands, so versatility to be able to do something to print delivery on whatever it is they're they're they're they're um promoting. Yep. In you know, with a flexibility that you can do something in the short run to get something into a market test or something, and you can do that fast, and you can do it representative of what it might be in the end.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:So I think that's speed to market for the end customer. So versatility from digital is an advantage, but it's not everything for every case. Um, and then there's speed to market for an operator to be able to have the capability or to make choices or to have the equipment or to bring a new sort of equipment that uses the technology in a different format. Um, that speed to market, I think, is that's essential, and that's where there's a difference opening up, I feel.
SPEAKER_01:And you mentioned um at Label Expo, without going into names, as you said, that the Chinese, the Koreans, um, there was technology there this time around, which was impressing you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, some some of it did somebody said to me that they they they were looking at a machine and thought that's good. Well, I can't understand. Did they produce that day? Because I didn't know anything about that. And they're looking at the machine and they thought, yeah, that's really German, Italian. Sorry? German, Italian? It it was a European, let's let's just say it was a European. Um, and um, and that's they're studying the machine, and obviously you do that, you look at the machine, and then you actually try to get more close, closer look, and um, and that popped a couple of Chinese engineers from behind it. So on the face of it, it was a European, um, you know, big brand OEM, and behind it, it was probably um Chinese. Now that was anecdotal. It's anecdotal, but I did see with my own eyes that there were other cases where there were things that were produced in Asia that that were most definitely what people would consider to be European OEMs. Yeah, that's interesting. And I think also I think the the the pat it's the method of doing things in some places is different. Um we often get um uh the the demand why from Korea, for example, they expect uh if they've got a problem, then they work on it 24-7 until it's done.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, that's not the European culture. No. So so that often comes up in uh in conversations. And I think maybe you've got to have that work-life balance as well, because there are other in any different culture, there are differences and there are difficulties. Um, but uh I I think maybe the old ways of developing something over a long period of time might miss the spot, is in danger of missing the spot. And it's the K show that's on at the moment. Yeah. Um, there's some interesting things that are are being shown there. And some of those developments, um, let's take flexible packaging or or uh DTS, there's some of those things have been a long time in their gestation. Um, and you know, the world was a different place when they started. So hopefully they actually hit the spot when they come to market. But you know, if you're talking about many, many years to develop something, the world is changing so fast that you may be aiming for something that might not be the reality at the end of the process.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So so speed to market is reducing risk.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. We we talked about themes that we might want to pick up on, and I and and actually you started to allude a little bit to that sort of geocultural differences across the world. You know, you as you said yourself, you've worked you've worked for czar, you work for Rico. That's two culturally different businesses. Rico, Japanese, Tsar, English. Uh GIS is obviously British as well, or English, British. Um, so what you but you see the world, you know, kind of you can see what the market's doing. With working for someone like GIS, is it gives you quite a good insight into doesn't really matter where it's coming from, um you know, you can deliver a solution for them. But what do you sense globally? Is the impact on of global or cultural differences on the impact of use of inkjet? What do you sense? You know, if you were comparing kind of Europe, India, China, US, what's what's your sense?
SPEAKER_00:There's um there's some amazing differences, and it's um it's not um we've gone through uh a period where all the media have told us that low globalization, globalization, corporate corporate thing is globalization, it should be the same everywhere. So why do we need difference? Yep. Um and and you can produce in one place and sell all over the world. Well, um recent political things have sort of made it such that uh maybe those assumptions have been challenged. Um and if you if you move things around the world, then you is that the best thing? There's a campaign in India, for example, that's been running for many years now, uh, make in India government sponsored for manufacturing uh to serve the domestic market to reduce imports. But also I think that could tend towards if it up if if it ups the game of things then ups the standard, then um why not export? But that's 20% of the earth. And you saw what happened with China, it's become the over the years it's um it's it's gone it's gone from start-up to um the thing that the world relies on for manufacturing most of the stuff that we need. Yeah, um and you could you can argue, I'm not I'm not gonna get into the what's what's um stable and sensible and whether there's danger in these things, but actually, is it sustainable? Um well, it doesn't take much to shock it so that it it gets called into question. And I think we're probably well into a period now of um uh de-globalization or localization or something like that, where uh energy costs play into that as well. So if you're moving stuff around the world, then how much does it cost to move it in terms of carbon and um as well as um of money? So making things where they're consumed, making things where they're needed, um, is a consideration. And um, when you when you start, if you if you had so let's say um I'm just gonna pick on a country, let's say Germans are prolific at uh manufacturing high-tech stuff. So if you're manufacturing machines in Germany and exporting all over the world, which is uh, you know, German because Germany is so good at it, that's happened throughout um the last decades. But just now, um it's not necessarily whether you're technically advanced, it's not necessarily whether you're the best, it's whether you're the best fit. And the best fit is capital cost and it's it's it's it's getting the best formula, the best format at the point when it's needed, at the time when it's needed, in the place when it's needed, where it's needed. Um, I think that India produces its own things to suit its own market in its own way. It expects certain things, it makes them in a particular way, it even learns in a different way compared to China, uh, which is different again to Germany. Then there's vertical integration. Um there's some companies like to produce everything themselves, every widget and washer, um, uh, and even some of the complex things that take a lot of development time, they consider to be their core competence. So they actually make them, even though they don't have the volume to justify doing so. I mean, particularly in the electronics world, for example. Um I think um vertical integration is good to a point, but you have to you have to choose whether it is actually strategically important.
SPEAKER_01:But let's let's just take China as an example. And they are doing great things in EVs, electronic vehicles, and there's quite a significant area of opportunity with inkjet in that kind of world, isn't there? Because obviously battery technology, uh conductive electro uh conductive inks, you know, electronics, that seems quite a good opportunity to me. Is do you sense that?
SPEAKER_00:It is. Uh it depends where you see the opportunity. I as you said, I've been been um a long time in print heads. It you you'd see the opportunity is the the the size of market for the number of printheads they're consumed.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Functional fluids applications, it tends to be that you have a stable process, you do it repetitively. There aren't very many machines doing those things. Okay. There are it's a solid market. Yeah. And if you can do that application, then you can you can you can um let's say you can find a home for X number of printheads.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Compared to some of the mass markets, like label, for example. Yeah, um, it's quite small in terms of number of printheads. So it depends where you measure your success. Now, if you're involved in clever software to make sure the dosage of all the coatings and materials is ultra precise, then the software is extremely high value. Or you're if you're stretching the performance of something, then it's high value. So you don't need volume, it's a more of a rare thing. So it it depends how you measure it as uh the size of the opportunity, how you size the opportunity.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So you mention India. And when you think of India clear clearly, China has um uh quite sophisticated manufacturing lines for lots of different reasons. There were you know, when they were building lots of office blocks, then construction was a big market for even for Incheck, wasn't it? Was it you know that opportunity to ceramics exactly, exactly, exactly. Um you mentioned earlier India feels it feels a bit like India's the kind of it's been ready to go for it, and it's now you know population size, everything is pointing towards it being one of the you know the real tiger of that that kind of development. What do you sense there? What do you think will be the opportunities there?
SPEAKER_00:I I think um you start from the top, why the opportunity? Um it's uh as I said, China and uh China and India are both 20% of the Earth's population. I don't know who's it might be. I think it's slightly more India now. But um in terms of wealth and and um impact, then China's had more impact more recently. Um I think that's all about organization. So uh the organization in China is streamlined towards and and it's aligned. People are aligned. Yeah, it's it's it's it's sort of clear what they're what they're trying to do, yeah. Um and they're clear in their heads as well. So and and um resourcing is applied to push in the same direction. Now in India it's a little bit more yes, yes, and it's free market, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, the the the the opposite, isn't it, in a way. It is it's virtually not organized like that, but the free market is flowing.
SPEAKER_00:I I'm glad you were organized, uh you said like that, but it it is organized, but in a particular way, it's a difficult thing to decode. Yeah, I think um uh the there's been a political clarity over recent times, um, which uh I don't recall having seen during the you know the the previous couple of decades, but it seems to be clearly moving in a direction towards um aligning. And that's interesting. Um I I think they do things in a different way, they're focused on different things, and it's never it's never you can't sort of describe the whole thing, especially in countries that vast. But I think there's massive opportunity there, and uh, I think they're there's they're doing things that they weren't doing five years ago, and they they were doing things five years ago that they weren't doing ten years ago. Um, it's progressing very fast.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. So uh again, focusing and thinking about inkjet, um, as you said yourself, uh you know, examples of ceramics being one of those markets that's really blown and grown. Um we talk a lot about sort of an industrial print in the sort of manufacturing world. Um, how do you see the the differences between the US and Europe in terms of use of it, Jeff?
SPEAKER_00:Um well the U the US is um I know we're it's an interesting time because I think um if you can if you were looking after the American market and you said, well, okay, I'd like to bring manufacturing jobs or jobs back to the U to the US and you know, all of those political kind of things um without straying into that territory, I think probably people would say, Oh, that's not a bad idea. We should stick up for ourselves instead of being the the ones that help the rest of the world. But on the other hand, then you can't be the leading country in the world without actually looking after the the children countries like us. Um but but uh I I think for Inkjet, um there are there are some it hasn't been focused on manufacturing, it has actually outsourced a lot to other countries, and I think it's probably been poorer for it in some cases. But if you look at where patents, uh you know, the uh the the the origination of patents, there's a lot of stuff that is is invented and developed in in the US and Canada, um uh and disproportionately high amount, in fact. So you can see there are good ideas there. So why haven't those good ideas been turned into things that are made in America? Well, some of it could, of course, it has, but um, I think maybe the bit that's lagging behind is the making stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Particularly when you're talking about the area that we're talking about, which is sort of inkjet technology, you know. We know, don't we, that inkjet uh you know, Japanese technology, British stroke, European development? There hasn't been the same level of inkjet development and and and customizing and testing and trying in the US as there has been and failing, and failing, and which is part of development. Learning, yeah, exactly. You you've you learn by failing. Um yeah, is that gonna change? Do you think? Or or do you just see, yeah, that's just not gonna happen? It's just not they're not a developer nation.
SPEAKER_00:Has it been happening or has it been happening in a different form? Because if you get um if you get some of the European big companies, the bigger companies in our industry, they they've they've actually been very um doggedly, determinedly doing that as part of their general work day in, day out, um, for years and years. Uh it's prominent, it's prominent. So maybe the same kind of stuff goes on in a different way in the US. So I'm I'm pretty sure there's a lot of it goes on. Now we're talking about two blocks with about roughly 400 million people.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So so clearly they have capacity to do that. I don't think it's sort of ingrained in them as much in the the Americas as it is in uh uh Europe, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, um uh Italy. Um, but I I think maybe that's because it takes a more dogged, determined long-term effort, and maybe we're kind of we bridged the two. Short-term return is the UK is looking for short-term return, much more. Yeah, um, and that's that's part of our financial culture. Yeah, and it's also part of the American financial culture. So it takes a long time to develop these things um in the old way, but that's where it's interesting because if you can develop things that fast in China, then why can't you do that elsewhere?
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:So if then you can get your short-term returns, so it might it might be it might go full circle.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You don't you don't see uh another ceramics market around looming around the corner for inkjet.
SPEAKER_00:Uh that's that's a question often asked over the years. Um it it was a it was a a unique time, and it was the the drivers for ceramics were that uh for inkjet and ceramics was that um there was a a property crisis, there was a proper construction crisis. Yep. Um everything slowed down with the financial um the banks and the finances. So uh if the money dries up, then the work dries up, the buildings don't go up, then that means there's less demand for the things that are produced, including ceramic tiles. So ceramic tiles were produced on a high-efficiency push model before, and they were produced by um uh you tile press and then reveal printing. Um, quite a lot of inefficiency in the system, and then you're producing for stock. Now, when the demand dries up, and it is a fashion business as well, because the designs on tiles they go out of fashion quite quickly.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:You're producing stuff, then if you don't sell it the first couple of years, you're probably going to smash it up, and then uh that that's it. Your money's gone down the toilet, yeah. Um, which is again ceramics. So uh I didn't no pun intended there. But uh uh that that was a with that slowdown and with the efficiencies and with the amount of money tied up in stock, and with the uncertainty of what you needed to produce to attract the market and the competitiveness of getting what demand there was or or gaining what demand there was in sales, it it was a perfect storm.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so it's it was quite driven by the necessity, and then Inkjet came along and it could it could decorate tiles cheaper than had been done before. So it was not only necessary, it was cheaper to do it. So everybody was clamoring for machines, but they're only 7,000 lines, and once that's done, it's a replacement market, and those machines, and this is a good thing for Inkjet, those machines lasted a very long time. Yeah, so I think some people are probably on there. So there might even be some first generation that really still still operating, yeah. Um but in any case, the printheads lasted, the machines lasted. It's quite tolerant, the process is quite tolerant, and that that's that sort of shows what can happen. Now the question is will that happen in any other any any other area? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um there's not that same perfect storm, is there?
SPEAKER_00:No, no, you you you might get some of those elements together, but not all of them. Yeah, and I think generally um inkjet is in the end product, the ink is per kilo more expensive, but then you're using 100% of it on the substrate, um, whereas uh it's compared with analog, which is very much less expensive, but you're using X percent. So um you can have all those arguments, and I think that maybe it's it's gonna be difficult for there to be that sudden impetus to make a transformation. But I think uh that going back to the label expo, I I think that it's accepted that label expo, uh label expo it was evident that um uh people who are producing labels have such a variety of ways to produce those labels, yeah. Inkjet, uh other digital or analog, and um there's a a section of the market, and I think it's there for the long term.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But it won't be it won't be flash.
SPEAKER_01:No, no.
unknown:Um
SPEAKER_01:Richard, as we're kind of coming to the end of the conversation, just so I can get my head around what you know, you said you've been at GIS now for two years. Um, you're a busy man, very difficult to thin down. Um what what projects are you working on that you can share that you're kind of excited about? What what are you doing that you're really loving at the moment?
SPEAKER_00:It's it's that old thing. Well, what am I doing? I'm loving. Um I don't on the first part of that. What's what projects? The projects, it's it's that old NDA question. Um we're very much under the bonnet.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00:So um, or under the hood if it's if it's uh um but so so we it's not our it's not our thing to announce what's in there. Some people prefer to be quiet about it, and some you know, but that there are some things that come to market, and if you look carefully, then you can see what we're involved in. Um involved internally in in sort of um making it more accessible to we do ink systems as well as drive electronics and software, packaging the software in forms where it's easier for people to understand and use. That's that's good. Um so we're we're we're doing a lot of a lot towards that. The ink systems, um we've we do a lot of bespoken custom for you know specific to a particular equipment build, which um which is what we're we're known for, um, with the customers, but then it's they don't probably talk about um who's inside because it's just we put the systems together and we design it. Um but I think there's an opportunity to make it more standard.
SPEAKER_01:If I was talking to one of your customers and I said, Well, what is it that you love about GIS? What would they say?
SPEAKER_00:Um I think I think the when you when you actually try and do complicated things, Inkjet can be a complicated business. When you're trying to do complicated things, to have some versatility and the software capability to be able to make stuff work. Now there's there's a bunch of people here. They like the I think our customers like the problem-solving ability of our clever chaps and chap S's.
SPEAKER_01:I yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_00:I th I th I and it's difficult how to if you can translate that into rather than solving individual problems, but but sort of confronting standard situations to to actually apply it more generally. Yeah, that would be interesting. That's that's that's probably the major challenge.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:To take the cleverness and package it in forms where it's easily accessible.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. Listen, good to speak to you. Um, thank you very much for giving us your time. Appreciate it. And um been been enjoyable just finding out what what you're up to, but also hearing your view of the world. So thank you, Richard. And uh thank you very much. No, thank you, thank you.
