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
#276 - What Next for Industrial Inkjet?
In this episode, which was recorded Oct 17 in webinar format, we explore the evolution—and accelerating future—of industrial inkjet technology with three experts shaping its direction across manufacturing, materials, and design.
Ken Stack, Executive Chairman of Engineered Printing Solutions, reflects on the journey from promise to production. He charts how sectors like graphics, ceramics and textiles made the digital leap, and explains why direct-to-shape printing—once limited by geometry—is now achieving true production speeds thanks to advances in robotics, automation, and ink chemistry.
Mikael Boedler, Head of New Business Development at Inkatronic, shares how inkjet is evolving from decorative to functional manufacturing. Through precision deposition of coatings and materials, inkjet now enables breakthroughs in electronics, biomedical devices, and advanced industrial coatings—transforming how materials are applied with micron-level accuracy and minimal waste.
Royce Dodds, Design and Digital Print Specialist at Wilsonart Germany, discusses how AI and digital workflows are reshaping decorative printing. From AI-generated surface designs to sustainable on-demand production, he explains how digital technology empowers creativity, reduces waste, and makes bespoke décor commercially viable.
Together, these leaders reveal a technology at a tipping point—moving from the periphery of prototyping to the heart of industrial production. Inkjet is now more than printing: it’s a core enabler of digital manufacturing where physics, chemistry, data, and design converge.
Join us to hear why industrial inkjet’s next decade promises smarter materials, agile production, and the fusion of automation and creativity.
🎧 Listen now on FuturePrint Podcasts and discover why print is no longer the end of production—but the process itself.
If you would prefer to view the recorded Webinar, please click here.
Listen on:
Apple Podcast
Google Podcast
Spotify
What is FuturePrint?
FuturePrint is a digital and in person platform and community dedicated to future print technology. Over 20,000 people per month read our articles, listen to our podcasts, view our TV features, click on our e-newsletters and attend our in-person and virtual events.
We hope to see you at one of our future in-person events:
FuturePrint TECH: Industrial Print: 21-22 January '26, Munich, Germany
Welcome to the FuturePrint webinar or today's webinar. The theme of this session is Industrial Inkjet. What next? And our last session back in July, we looked at the development of Inkjet, and we're going to kind of re revisit that a little, but we've got a different group of panelists today, which is fantastic. We have our first transatlantic guest actually, Ken Stack. And you're in the US in the Michigan area. Thanks for joining us, Ken.
SPEAKER_01:Great to be here.
SPEAKER_03:Ken's with EPS, and he'll talk a bit about that and give us a bit of insight in terms of market trends and developments. You've got a huge amount of expertise and wisdom. One of the benefits of age, isn't it, Ken?
SPEAKER_01:And there you go. Very subtle way to say I'm all, Marcus. Thank you very much, man.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'll I'll take that. Thank you very much. Also joining us today, Mikhail Bodler from Incotronic. Welcome, Mikhail. And your Mikhail's located in the Austria.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, correct. Thank you very much, uh Marcus, for inviting me here to talk a bit about what Incotronic is doing in um industrial applications with Inkjet.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you've done some amazing work, as is Ken. And also joining us, Royce Dodds. And somewhere in Germany, I know you sound English, Royce, but you have probably lived in Germany as long as you've lived in England, is that right?
SPEAKER_00:It's exactly 50-50 at the moment, yeah. You feel a bit of both, or are you uh I'm uh but I would feel a bit more German spent than English now. I struggled to drive when I was back in England recently.
SPEAKER_03:So I mean, okay, so that's uh relative, so to speak. So and and Royce is um joining us from Wilson art. So what I've assembled today and what we have on the panel really covers a lot of the spectrum of industrial inkjet. Ken will give us the big picture and also talk a bit about EPS and director's shape, which obviously linked in with the packaging industry. My cows um Encotonic do a huge amount of work within the functional area, which is really exciting and different. And it also plays to the strength, I think, of Inkjet and the diversity of it. And then Royce, I know, has a huge amount of experience and interesting insights around decor, but also with AI. So I think in the space of an hour we're gonna get a really cool rounded picture. So we're gonna kick off now, really, with Ken, because he had to get up super early to get to get on this course. We'll let him go first. So, Ken, if you if you could give us a little bit of uh of the insight of who you are and some of some of the trends and your opinion of the future, really, before you then talk about EPS.
unknown:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:Well, again, Marcus, thanks for having me. For those of you who don't know me, uh, Ken Stack. I've been in the digital print business for for close to 30 years. Uh, started two companies. The last one was a company called Jetreon that was focused on the digital label and packaging space. Sold that to eFi in 07, was on the eFi management team for a number of years. After a very feeble attempt at retirement, I started a company called Proximus that is probably the largest MA advisory within the industrial print world. I've done over a billion, two, billion, three, of deals within industrial link chit. So I've I've been lucky because I've gotten to see full sort of the history and across a lot of the different vertical markets. So it's been it's been a fun ride. And as Marcus alluded to, I've actually taken on a new challenge this year to become the executive chairman of EPS, which I'll talk about as we as we go forward. Um, Marcus would ask me to talk a little bit about sort of the history of industrial link chit and then sort of what's coming. Um, first let's sort of define at least how I view industrial link chit. You know, industrial link chit is a series of markets that are tied together by a common technology. So there are a lot of different applications, a lot of different markets. We go back to really the originals, things like superwide and wide format, outdoor. It was 100% screen back in the 80s and 90s. Obviously, nowadays that market is almost 100% digital. So the analog to digital transition there has completely taken over. Uh, markets like ceramics, okay, markets like textiles, markets like labels, okay, markets like corrugated, markets like laminates. These are all the world today that we live in that we call at least today sort of industrial inkjet. And all of these markets, to me, the where the really interesting points are, they've all gone through periods of what I call hypergrowth. And okay, we're not open AI in our world, but if I define hypergrowth at 15 to 25% a year market growth, all of these things have gone through some sort of exponential growth period. And it's always with two common themes. First one is obviously market forces. Market forces in any of those markets are driving down runlands, which obviously for setup costs, forces that the analog is now becoming too expensive, pushing up the need for digital. But the question for me, and the really interesting thing about all of those markets, is when do they go exponential? Those market forces usually are there. Yeah, they get worse over time, but they're usually already there. It's really when does the technology rise up to meet the market need in that specific market? Okay, so if we go back to wide format today, probably 80, 90% of the wise format world is already digital. It's undergone a complete transformation from analog to digital. Same thing with ceramic tiles, right? Ceramic tiles, if you think about market growth, was probably the fastest growing digital print market in history. I don't know if it's ever going to be eclipsed. It went from sort of zero to 100 in almost a period of five or 10 years, kind of crashed a bit after the Asian uh real estate issues, but still to this day, still a large market. Textile is incredible. Textile pre-COVID was growing 15 to 25% a year, three to five years in a row, exploding. COVID hit. We all stopped buying her may ties, we stopped getting dressed up. The market changed quite a lot. Um, a lot of Asian competitors came in, changed the market dynamics of price. We can talk more about that later, Marcus, if you want. But the the interesting thing with textile is it's still, even though from a market perspective, particularly for Western suppliers, kind of a difficult market, it's still absolutely gigantic, perhaps though at a lower profit point. Labels, I would say, is somewhere in the middle of that transition. Okay. It's had some really good years over the last three to five years of growth. It's becoming digital is now a mainstay within that market. Um, and it's still sort of somewhere in the middle of that transition. I would say for laminate and corrugated, you know, those are pretty interesting markets. They're absolutely gigantic markets. They're certainly moving towards digital. I think people have been, I would say, a little disappointed in the level of growth of those markets, at least from a supplier perspective, right? A lot of people have spent millions and millions developing products. They've certainly grown, but they haven't grown to the level of, say, a wide formatter of ceramics, mostly because I think the market need didn't quite have the same pull, maybe, as some of those other markets. For me, though, in terms of the future, the two markets that I see as the future are direct to object and direct to shape, as we call it. They both tend to mean the same thing, and functional printing. And I'm going to let Mikhail kind of jump into the details of functional print, but I'll spend a few minutes on direct to shape. You know, I actually have jumped back into the industry to take over as executive charity EPS because I think direct to shape is exactly at that moment of exponential growth. The market need has been there forever. Pad print, offset, screen have dominated direct object printing for 50, 100 years. Okay. And it's a massive market, as big as any of the markets that we just talked about. The hard part, though, is it's a question of geometry. Unlike all of those other markets, they print on things that are flat. Okay. We have to print on things that are round, that have funny contours, that are shaped. We have to pick those objects up. We have to deal with thousands and thousands of different surfaces. So technologically, it's been a really difficult market to crack. And what's happened over the last sort of three to five years, and the reason that I'm so interested in the market is that technology has now risen up, right? One of the main technological improvements that have happened is the ability to jet over longer distances because we're printing on non-flat objects. I can't be necessarily within a millimeter of the distance, right? Well, we all started in this business. We used to try to set up printers to less than a millimeter. Then we were like, oh my gosh, we got a little bit over a millimeter. This is great. Well, now we're jetting at three to five, seven millimeters. This opens the door now for direct shape. Secondly, uh printhead improvements in terms of reliability, in terms of the high viscosity inks, the ability to print on a lot of surfaces. Automation has improved drastically. Okay. And so for me, what's really interesting about those markets is they really start to go exponential when the when the technology rises up and we get to what we call production capacity. Okay. What do I mean by that? So today, you know, you can take a look at, for example, Director Shape, and Director Shape print has been around forever. Think of the little multi-pass printers that go back and forth like your home printer. They're printing cell phone cases, promotional goods. That's been around forever. Great little market, but that's never going to go impact Procter and Gamble, right? Where you're talking about having to produce billions and billions of plastic bottles or something like that. Well, today the technology has actually gotten there where we can actually do production volumes. And Marcus, would you mind flipping up a couple of those overheads? Uh so I'm just going to show you a few examples. These are actual systems that are in the field today. Uh, the one on the top is printing capsule closures. Okay, so today in the field, we're printing 2,000 fully digital caps in a minute. Think about that, in a minute. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Okay, this is this is a true production application today. Not a lot of people realize how much of those markets are starting to shift to digital. And that's why I'm so excited about direct to shape. Same thing with promotional goods. The system on the bottom there is printing, depending on the shape and the size, you know, 400 to 2,000 parts a minute. That's the kind of volume I'm talking about in production. If you flip to the next side, Marcus, we can see some really interesting shapes. Golf balls, massive market. So today, EPS is the undisputed leader in golf ball printing. We print millions and millions of golf balls a year, fully digital. When you see those really cool colors or really cool shapes, I can assure you that's not pad printing, which is today the dominant sort of uh printing technology in that market. So these systems print thousands of golf balls an hour. Saw blades. If you walk into a Home Depot today, a huge chunk of the saw blades that you see on the shelf today are already digital. Okay. And these are the kind of things. But if you look at those shapes, it's very, very different than trying to print on a web or something flat, right? You've got to be able to move the part underneath the print head with micron accuracy to be able to deliver the drop on time to a surface that was never meant to be digitally printed. Okay. Finally, the last overhead, uh, this is actually where to me the evolution is going. This is a real product. In fact, we're showing it next week, I think for the first time, at uh at the Printing United show down in Orlando. This is actually an ink head on the end of a robot for printing large contours. Think about the screen markets, right? Where you're printing, where you're screen printing very, very large contoured objects. We can now do that with digital. The thing that's so interesting to me about the direct shape markets, and you know, as Marcus pointed out very nicely for me, I'm old and have been around for a long time. If you think about these other markets, it's all about cost savings, right? It's all about saving on setup as run lines shortened. And there's two areas there's materials and there's labor. Okay. We have never in our history been so sensitive right now to cost, right? Inflation is crazy, right? If you think about your consumables cost over the last three to five years, they're up 10, 20, 30%. But most important is the labor side. If you think about the setup on a typical pad print job, let's say I'm printing a construction helmet, you know, logo on the front, someone's name on the side, happy face on the third side. The setup for that job is over an hour to print 20 or 30 helmets. It's crazy. Those customers, those printers charge a$400 setup fee with digital, that now becomes your profit, right? Because there is no setup time. This is the value proposition that I find so interesting for Direct to Shape. It is the best analog to digital value proposition in terms of cost savings that I've ever seen. I think, you know, so for me, Direct to Shape is just entering that sort of exponential growth because we now can hit production volumes, right, and meet the market needs of being able to print on extremely complex, difficult objects. So that's that's why I'm so excited about it. I think print for manufacturer, I certainly won't steal uh Tails Thunder, but that's another area where there's there's literally 50, 75, 100 different end use applications, really hard fluid problems. But again, for some of the same reasons that I just talked about, ability to jet different fluids, ability to jet over a larger distance. He's gonna, I think, talk about some of those things, upsides for uh for print for manufacturers. So hopefully that gives you sort of a little bit of history of the market, kind of where we're going, I think direct to shape and print for for manufacturer, functional print, or certainly the future of uh of industrial inkjet.
SPEAKER_03:Brilliant, Ken. Thanks so much for that. One a couple couple of thoughts sprang into my mind I wanted to ask. So the compelling thing here in terms of adoption seems to be economics. Is that that that was true of ceramics as well, right?
SPEAKER_01:That's true of every one of those markets. That's a great point, Marcus. So, you know, it's interesting. If I look at our EPS customers, 80% buy because of their current jobs. Think about it. If you're if you're a producer, whether you're a manufacturer of doll holes or saw blades or a decorator, if you're gonna make a large system purchase, you want to know you have the business today. You don't want to say, oh, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna go buy this for some new capability, and then I'm gonna go try to sell that volume. That's a that's a pretty hard sales pitch, okay? So the number one reason people, and the number one reason those markets hit that exponential growth curve because enough people can say, hey, I'm gonna take the business I have today, put in this machine, and then pay it off over the next six, eight, twelve months. That's it. Selling new technology and new ability, things like 2D barcodes, right? We get a lot of calls about 2D barcodes, and that's that's great. Okay. But but if you're gonna want those markets to go exponential, you've got to hit the meat of the market, right? And the meat of the market is their current business. If you think about any manufacturer or decorator today, ask them the average age of their decorating staff. It's as you already told me, old, right? We're 50 plus years old, okay? Find a 25-year-old that wants to be elbow high in solvent padding or burning screens. Okay. But I can find a 25-year-old that wants to run a digital printer, right? And quite honestly, they're usually pretty good at it, very adept at it, it's very natural. So the labor issue right now is also driving a lot of this adoption, right? Because people just can't find operators that are willing to go in and set up an offset press or, like I said, burn screen plates. So so for me, that's when I look as an analyst at a market, I'm looking for, okay, how many forces are adding up to drive that transition? And that's why I'm so excited about you know, direct to shape. And that's why I I got back in.
SPEAKER_03:Brilliant. And one other question. So presumably the people adopting the technology are pad printers or are you finding Pad printers, pad offset a screen. And are they viewing this tech as a replacement or are they seeing it as an addition?
SPEAKER_01:Or great question. I think from a value perspective, it's got to be essentially a replacement, right? Again, you know, it's unless you're willing to change that labor force within your plant, that's where the savings come from. Right. And what's going to drive them, though, is when their neighbor does it. In fact, I was just giving a talk to a group that does in-mob uh labels, right? So lots of plastic manufacturers. And my comment was this look, you know, you know, it goes really slowly, and then all of a sudden, right? And that's sort of the moment I think that we're in at digital labor. When you're when your competitor adopts digital and drops the decorating cost by 25% and still can do short run, that's when the time, then you're too late, right? You've lost the business already. And so for me, you know, certainly do I think analog's going away? Absolutely not. We're never gonna move 100% of analog volume to digital in any market, right? There's always gonna be run lens that make sense for analog. There's always gonna be applications that we can't quite do. But this is my point again about production. Ultra short runs have been around for a long time with the little multipass stuff. And you know, and we sell that too. We sell that to our smaller customers that don't have the volume for a large production machine. But when you want to see a market truly transition, make that come up across the S-curve, right? That's when people move digital into true production. It's happened in Y format, it happened in ceramics, it happened in textile, it's happening right now in labels, right? To me, that's the as an analyst, when I look at those markets, that was the tipping point, right? Is when it went into true production, when you could replace your analog gear. And again, you're never going to replace it all. I would never say that, right? But when you can start taking 20, 30, 40% of your volume, which by the way, is really 80% of the value, right? Because you're selling those digitally printed products for more money than you were your analog, that's when a market to me gets really interesting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and it's exciting that, like you said, some of the sort of forces that we may have seen as threatening and negative and so on are actually the ones that are playing into the That's our drivers.
SPEAKER_01:That if you think back in our history of industrial digital, that's what drove us here. Right? Ever in every single one of those markets, it's really the same playbook over and over and over again. Different application.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks, Ken. Brilliant. And um moving on from Ken's brilliant picture of um development and and trends and so on and change, um, from packaging and director Shape would now focus a little on functional, and it's been an area, I think, of the of the printing or industrial printing world that's always posed perhaps some of the bigger challenges for Inkjet. So Mikhail, uh at Incotronic now, um Mikhail is gonna give us a little bit of insight really around um some of the work that Incotronic are doing because they really succeed. I'm interested to hear if some of those economic forces are helping and actually how you're solving those um complex issues and problems that um going forward that um I know you're having huge success. So Mikhail, if you'd like to share some slides, it'd be great to find out more.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes, definitely. I mean, uh here at Incatronic, we are liking challenges. So this is what really is exciting us in functional fluid applications. Um but yeah, to present myself and um good afternoon, everyone, and um thank you for joining the discussion. My name is Mikel Bödler, and um I lead new business development at Incatronic, and I've been involved with InkChat for more than seven years. And um at Incatronic, we focus on enabling advanced Inkchat solutions for industrial um and functional applications. So usually when I talk to companies who are not familiar with InkChat, um maybe it's the first time that they heard the term and are not familiar about the capabilities of InkChat, I usually um start saying that Inkjet is not just a printing technology, it is a highly precise digitally controlled material deposition process. That simple perspective shift often changes the way people think about what inkjet can do. Um I'm gonna share here a few slides. So let me uh have a look correct. Here we go. Are you able to see my screen? Yes, yeah, discussing where inkjet is used today, right? So over the last decade, inkjet has evolved far beyond graphics, textiles, and labels. Um today it's firmly established as a tool for advanced manufacturing. I mean, it's uh it's used in electronics, it's used in biomedical devices, photovoltaics, and codings, right? And um we already see Inkjet being used to jals across the full viscosity spectrum. I mean, just two examples, right? When you're looking at uh biomedical um fluids, right, that are being um that are being jeted or deposited contactless, right? We're talking maybe in the two centipoise range, right? Uh which is as well becoming extremely challenging as far as the selection of printed that are capable of um handling such low viscosity fluids. But then on the other spectrum, we are also looking at um functional and insulative coatings, and they can go well above 80 centipoise. So finding the solutions for the challenges on both edges of the spectrum, this is really where we try to bring components, solutions, and modules to facilitate um integration of Inkjet in these industrial um processes. And the range of function applications is expanding rapidly. Um coating glass to add um surface conductivity, um, applying perovskite layers for solar cells there, Epson. You really see them bringing printers that are able to handle um stronger solvents, um, or going building multimaterial components layer by layer. These are all examples of inkjet being used not to decorate, but to manufacture. And um, yeah, at Inkatronic, we've been focusing on functional coding applications. I think that this is really where the past two years and a half we've had been intensively um investing our resources and collaborating with many companies from the from the industry and particularly insulative coatings for industrial and automotive components as well in the aerospace industry. There's a lot of demand for applying insulative coatings differently to the processes used um nowadays in the industry. And um, it's well known that ZAR has taken a leading position in battery coating applications for the EV, for the electrical vehicle industry, and um using Inkjet to apply thin uniform layers, um, which are critical for battery safety and durability. These yeah, these are applications that are already running in mass production in China, where really um Inkjet has shown it can be as well used in mass production um as a technology. But in our view, what is happening in in China represents only a fraction of what Inkjet is capable of, right? And we're talking about flat surfaces, but we can do so much more with Inkjet. And we decided to push those boundaries towards the digital application of coatings on complex 3D parts, so not only flat surfaces, but really um surfaces that are nowadays difficult to um apply films over it, or um these parts are typically insulated with powder coating or spray systems and which come with several drawbacks. Um we're talking about high material waste, we're talking about limited control over coating and thickness, and of course, no ability to apply coatings selectively. Now, in my opinion, and as well from what we have seen, IncIT provides an elegant and elegant solutions to all these challenges. And this is what we are trying to really explore and see what is uh possible. So with with our systems and with our here in our uh application center in Austria, we are able to apply coatings precisely with with 40, 80, up to 180 micrometers thick with a tolerance of plus minus four microns, and to do so selectively on 3D surfaces. So and some surfaces we we can jet from distances over 50 millimeters and still be um have the tolerance, the thickness tolerances that are demanded. Um and uh yeah, applying material only where it's needed. So with no waste the result is not just a more sustainable process, but it also reduces the total part weight, it improves thermal performance, and it gives manufacturers new design flexibility that traditional coding methods simply can't achieve. So the question then is what comes next for industrial inkjet? The next wave of innovation will come from chemistry. So as printed technology continues to evolve, supporting higher viscosities, higher temperatures, and broader material compatibility, this is really what is opening the door for chemistry companies to develop more functional and more complex formulations. This means we'll see inks that conduct, we'll see inks that insulate chemistries, chemistries that insulate react or even cure into structural materials, all applied with digital precision. In other words, the next big step for inkjet isn't just faster or wider printing, it's smarter materials, more demanding applications, and deeper integration into manufacturing lines. And um yeah, of course there are challenges, right? And my opinion, one of the major challenges remains the scaling up, right? Everyone in this field that you ask that is trying to develop new processes for um uh within chit, everybody knows the difficulty of taking a promising result from a laboratory setup and turning into a robust, reliable, productive industrial process. That's exactly where in Catronic we focus um our efforts bridging this gap between lab and fab. And we work as a development partner, so providing equipment, so customized RD test stations that where we integrate industrial printeds and the same components which are then used in a later production printer. Um, we can as well support you in process development, so from waveform development, from fluid characterization, and able as well to provide complete fully engineered production printers really tailored to the specific industrial applications. So our goal is to help manufacturers, um, material developers um and integrators move from um what I call the can we jet this phase to how do we produce this reliably in scale. And Inkjet has already proven itself as a digital and sustainable and highly flexible platform for manufacturing. The real excitement lies in what comes next as we continue to unlock its full potential in functional and industrial applications. So yeah, I mean it's a technology that has been around for more than three decades, but um at Increonic and I strongly believe that it's only at the beginning. And it's truly exciting to see all the fantastic fields where Inkchat can still grow. And I am just really fortunate to be involved in all these newer developments and being able to as well um coming for a newer and younger generation, really see the potential of what is next for Inkjet.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks, Mikhail. That's excellent. And um I have to say, from a non-technical point of view, such as myself, it looks challenging and sounds very clever. Um it's almost where the word inkjet doesn't quite do that justice, does it? Because actually, a lot of what you're doing is not about ink, is it? It's it's about different different fluids. Exactly. Yeah, and it's it's different different fluids that's to do with the function and and so on. I was curious to find out a little more about your view of some of the drivers for adoption that are appealing to people. As Ken Ken highlighted very much the economics, suddenly the need for inkjet became really economically important. Are you seeing some of that cap play out in your sector? Because you obviously talk to to a different set of people, I guess, to compare with Ken. Is uh are the drivers the same?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, um if if I look in in um insulative coding applications, right? Um when we're talking with um um tier one, tier two suppliers of the automotive industry, we see that here in Europe we're needing to develop, we're needing to innovate, right? Um or else we're just not as competitive to our colleagues in in China. I mean, they're really doing a great job and catching up very quickly. And here in Europe, we're needing right um to innovate. And this is where you're seeing a lot of these OEMs trying to figure out different processes. How can we add value to our products? How can we do something better, more efficient, with less cost? Is really what's driving companies in in adopting new technologies. So it's also for sure, also um big financial um pressure behind right driving innovation here in Europe. This is this is really what we see um as. The main driving force, right? Um companies that are using analog technique or um spray coding and um powder coning and other processes that are complex, right? That are um that are just increasing cost, right? We and like I mentioned, competition is always a driving factor. And inkjet really is bringing new inkjet is really bringing new um possibilities and allowing OEMs to completely rethink how to manufacture certain components.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and so it's interesting you make the point about Europe and and innovation, and um, I completely agree. I think we've forgotten really the inn the spirit of innovation in a way and and willingness to try things out, take risks, and move quickly and fail fast. All of the things that in America everybody does without even thinking very much. But like we overthink here and we understand the sphere to fail here in Europe.
SPEAKER_02:There's the sphere to fail, and exactly how you mentioned if you're gonna fail, fail fast, right? Keep moving. And I feel like um um Georg, uh my father usually says that um while here in in Europe we are going about regulations and uh and discussing, negotiating in China, they're already building the first machine and developing the second unit, right? Constantly. And um they're just much quicker to market. And this is this is definitely something that that um needs to change here and uh I would say in in the industry in Europe.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and obviously it's obvious the US's um culture of innovation, but like you say, China is outstripping Europe already, I think. And that that ability to work at speed. So some of some of the innovation and some of the developments you're talking about is enabling faster innovation and de-risking some of it as well, isn't it? It means you can try things out without completely reinventing and changing um the different things. And also, I think um, like you say, competition drives innovation. So you're seeing that as well, which is which is cool. Thanks for that, Mikhail. That was that was really interesting and um appreciate your your talk and Solomon and your work. And obviously, both Mikhail and Ken will be speaking at Futureprint Industrial Print in Munich in January. So we're going into more detail about the work they're doing. You can meet them, anybody listening here. Welcome to the show. We'll send you a follow-up email with uh a VIP code for that. Um thanks. And our next speaker, very patiently waiting in in Germany there, half German, half English, Royce Dodd. Um, well, welcome, Royce. And um I known Royce a couple of years, friend of FuturePrint. We've interviewed you many times. You were very much at the forefront of the development of Inkjet within Decor. And uh let you explain more about what that means, at Wilson art and so on, and and also you've you've been uh working quite quite significantly with AI as well. So, welcome to your section, Roy. I've got to find your slides now. Do you want to introduce yourself while I do that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'll introduce myself and then I'll sort of give you a nod for the slides if that's okay. Um, yeah, so my name's Royce Dodds. I've been working in the deco industry for about 20 years. Previous to that, I was in the magazine industry in the UK. And yeah, about really about 20 years ago when we started using Inkjet to do samples for customers, we were probably doing about 1 meter 30 an hour, which is really quick. Uh mostly landside of jets. Um, and now nowadays with Koenigan Bauer and other machine manufacturers, you're doing about 180 meters a minute, which is a nice shift. Um yeah, the the deco industry, some people might say it's a bit conservative, and it's nice being on the inside to try and sort of push it and drive it and hopefully uh push it in the right direction. Uh I have a sort of second cap as well, that I work for the or work as an ambassador for the Deeper Digital Printing Association. So we try and have an overview about how we can support companies and how we can spread the use of digital print within the decor industry. And it's nice because you really get an insight into how companies look at it, approach it. At the very beginning, some people have seen it as an absolute headache. Uh they took people from a rotor gravour machine and put them on a digital machine, and I can see I can see somebody smiling there because I'm sure they know the problems that that would incur. Uh so you did you need a different mindset. And I do agree that uh it's the mindset of younger people is definitely very different to people my age. I'm pushing retirement age almost. Um it it's nice when you do get these younger people in and it brings in an energy into that field. The decor industry has changed as well. I mean, we had a talk earlier in the week about 2008 when there was a bit of a recession in the decor industry due to the banking industry not helping. And to me, when you have these areas of problem, shall we say, it actually drives innovation. Because people start looking around and going, okay, you know, we need to be a bit more uh cost efficient. So how can we be more cost efficient? One of the things that we've seen, uh especially over the past few years, is successful companies like Interprint bringing their digital print and showing the world really how to transition, but not completely, but actually how to transition part of their work into digital. Especially in the decor industry, it's it's not a replacement. You know, it it's it's an adjustment that w sits alongside. It's like two jigsaw puzzle pieces that sit very nicely together. You've still got your mass product, you've got volume, so that's your rotor of one, and you've got these nice highlights. And the highlights are very digital-based. Over the years there's been quite uh an investment in inks and the pigments that are used in both systems, so they're matching a lot better than they used to be. Um, the metamorism, all these sorts of problems that used to occur, they've literally disappeared. And when it comes to sort of driving, nowadays it's about speed as well. I mean, I've had the advantage of being in India and being in China over the past couple of years, and I mean I was I was blown away completely. Uh their work in progress compared to Europe is just like you said, they're innovative and they're innovative every single day. And it's speed, speed, speed, and the learning process is incredible. And in the design aspect here in Europe, it's a bit more relaxed, and we're gonna make we're gonna scan this today, and we're gonna take a few days to scan these things, and then we're gonna work on the process, and then it's gonna be maybe four designs a year if you're really good here. And the guys have already they're firing them out, but they're doing the same process, they're scanning, and they've just got the process nailed. So here it's still quite relaxed, bro. I think there are systems in place. I I don't we have to be careful how I talk about AI because I talk about it as a set of tools and not an individual piece. So it's a set of tools that support the designer and the creative side of it. And helping a design person sell a product to a customer or an individual to get the results they need, to get the turnout. Many years ago it used to be the bottleneck was the print machine because it's just the inherent speed of it. But the bottleneck has moved now to the design process because the machines are so much faster you've got to feed it, but then you've got to sell it at the same time. And if you're inherently bottlenecking in the design stage, then you can't sell the amount you need. And it's fas I mean, I've been absolutely fascinated watching Adobe develop their AI set of tools because they had AI built into it in I might be incorrect, but I'm pretty sure here it's 2012 they had their content aware filled. But it was a sort of it was a form of AI at that time. But it's not AI as we're talking about it today. And then the amount of tools now that Adobe will allow you to connect to to and help you enhance your designs, it's just uh it's astonishing. And if if we pop up a slide, I'll uh give it a little brief indication here. So on the entrance to RezaPar here in Germany, it's an absolute legacy, it's an incredible company to work at. Um but it's got these fantastic old buildings here. So it's got really modern and old, and it's almost like a clash. So we wanted to highlight that when people came into the reception area, uh they could actually meet this sort of old-style building, but we wanted to show them that we were trying to do something completely new. And the idea was we had these inkjet splashes on the wall that looked sort of partially graffiti-like. And we got the idea when we were travelling, because you often see these selfie walls that people were taking photos against, and it just sort of works. You you know, people are coming in a bit sort of shocked because it's normally a bit sort of um yeah, like I say, conservative to use that word. But now you're sort of seeing the sort of highlights. So if you just pop to the next one, that's the next slide as well. And of course, using these within Photoshop, you've got almost these 3D structures, and it's beautiful. I always love when you CC people, and they're having to put their hand on the product because they're not sure if it's really structured or not. So they're not only they're taking photos of us, they're actually checking, and then they're you know, it's a physical interaction with it, and it's one of the best compliments I think I can ever get when you see this. But then with the next slide, this is this is really taking uh AI as a tool, I'd almost say to a next level. So we've got a really uh these two pieces, one of them is real and one of them is AI-based. And the AI-based is still coming from a high-end 600 dpi scan. Using Photoshop and a set of yeah, a set of tools that we've got, we can run over this scan and effectively re recreate something beyond the original. And it's beautiful in the fact that you can actually be scanning different objects, but then automatically then feeding in to Photoshop and it's running through a process. So while you're scanning, then you scan your second piece, it's already creating your third piece. You scan your third piece, it's creating your fourth piece. So it's a it's a nice tool, and the compliment was here that you you gave this back to the person that did the scan and they weren't sure which was which. So that was a beautiful compliment at the same time. They really couldn't see the difference between the scan and the AI version. But you can't generate this through prompting. Because the quality is really not there at the moment. I mean it's prompting's great for specific sizes, but it's the I have to be careful by wording here. It's feeding the right information into the recipe to get the right information out of the recipe. So it's quality in, quality out. And that's where that comes back to. And uh yeah, that's fine. So and at Rezipal, what we're going to be offering is the fact that the reason we are extremely unique, especially in the decor branch, I'd probably say almost in Europe, is that we can deliver a single piece of HPL, a single piece of shishstoff or compact platter. And other companies concentrate on mass. It's about cubic in a lot of companies. It's about how many hundreds of boards do you need? And of course, in this climate, in this business climate, we sit in a quite a unique position that we can turn around and somebody says, Oh, I need a board of this, a board of this, and a board of this. And can you create there's some scan material? Can you produce me a single piece? And it's not financially viable for other companies to do it, but we make it work. So that's where digital print really comes in. And it plays a key role here. And it's it's vital, uh the costs of creating cylinders for designs, you it's just impossible to do that for a single product. It would have to be tons of paper that you produce. And at the same time, we have a design library that people can actually access then and say, okay, I need that, that, that, and that design, and we'd print them. It's it's really a print-on-demand scenario. There's there's no stock for specific designs. They get printed fresh and they matched and they go to the customers, and the customers are happy. And it's the ability that digital print gives you to be that flexible with the customers. And it's it's not just here, I mean uh most of the companies that do have digital print, they'll be explaining the same sorts of things. Um when you see rotor gravel competing and on a level with digital print, there's a wonderful presentation that Robert Bierfreund from Interprint made about changing the cylinders, changing then the designs, washing down, setting up times, and you can see all these tiny little jobs on the digital print machine going through. And the cost has been reduced so much that it actually makes it so much more efficient for these smaller jobs to be done in digital print. And it goes back to what has been said earlier, it's about that's a cost factor. At the very beginning, because of the low speeds, the cost was absolutely ridiculous. But now, because the cost factor and the speed factor's there, uh and I'm uh hopefully I'm not getting this wrong, it used to be about four tons as a cutoff point. Used to be a lot, a lot higher. But now now we're actually doing a four to eight tons, and you can match the prices with digital print. And that that's a key role, and it's like this economic climate at the moment we're all experiencing, you know, it's about collaboration. It it's about innovation. But it's it's uh certainly about costs, and it's keeping an eye on them. And that's uh for me an absolute key role that digital print has played through the time I've noticed. And we talked about that as well, you know, in a in a period of some uncertainty. It's always good to try and find that bit of blue sky. Yeah. And that that's for me a key role that digital print offers people at the moment.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, brilliant. And and and like you say, the the opportunity in that adversity, if you if you will, is is that um you're looking for, you know, you can find inventive ways to to create new value and new business, solve some of those problems. Not least because I I've seen some of these rotok view cylinders, and I mean they're literally engraved, aren't they? And it's a real art mess. And I think they cost a 100k plus per cylinder, something like that. They repeat, they they may look lovely and they may be very economically viable on long run, and so on, but the patterns repeat, don't they? And therefore, there's a bit, and then you have to print a lot of stock, and the stock, therefore, has a lot of money or expectation. If the design doesn't sell, there's a waste. So what so digital comes in as this agile kind of creative um solution that that that like you say doesn't replace like it doesn't particular necessarily in in in in functional or in DTS, but it does something so fundamentally different. And what you've been discovering over the last kind of year or two is add a like a turbo to the engine, isn't it? AI. Yeah, yeah. Like it's like, wow, you're just kind of suddenly putting digital print on a completely other scale, and you're getting value from that. And the like I think one of the examples you said to me before, there's a specific African wood, right? That that's really rare, and you were able to you were able to use scan and use and and and replicate and bring it bring something to life that is um it's just virtually.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there are rip there are rare woods, there are rare woods that people are no longer allowed to utilize. And there is a wood dealer that I know, and they they got them before these were actually not able to be sold, let's put that way. So they actually have a lot of stock that they're not allowed to touch door. Um I'm pretty sure there's uh German bureaucracy. Uh I'm sure Mikhail knows a bit about German bureaucracy with everything, it's all stamped and documented and everything, so you have to be extremely careful. And it will give you the ability to create things that are no longer being able to be handled or dealt with. And it it's it's a bit like bringing back a mammoth, shall we say. You know, it's that that sort of level. You can bring back some most beautiful wood designs for sure. Um and it's it's the flexibility that that sort of gives you, you know. Like I say, it the it comes down to a lot about quality for sure. As a there's a sort of lit, there's there is a limit, as a limit at the moment. But when I compare my very first ever um AI generated image, and I've always got this thing about a Porsche in a cabin in the mountains, a nice little Porsche S4, sort of sitting in the mountains. And the very first one, you like, what on earth is this? You know. But then you look, you type it into version 7 of Midjourney and the same, exactly the same pron, and it it looks incredibly real. It looks like a drone shot. But then, even worse now, and I won't get too far into that area, the the actual photograph can be turned into a video, which is just mind-blowing for marketing people in this industry as well. The things that you can now create are so close. But it does come down to sort of a lot about resolution and things, and that's where I think you've got some very smart companies in Germany. Um, Sauer Essig, they have an awful lot of AI tools in-house that they utilize. They are a very, very smart company. And the people that are developing their own in-house set of tools, we've got some scripts that we run through Photoshop. And that's a sort of key point, you know. How how do we utilize these tools that we have and how can we enhance them to bring the win that we need to our product? It's a key point. And uh yeah, I mean it's it's been a very interesting journey, for sure. And the the for a man of my age I would say I'm very childlike because I still play Skyrim every weekend. And and I'm very much looking forward to the next version. And it's that quality aspect of things, you know. And it it's getting closer, but it's it's the ability to use the tool sets you have, like these high-end scanners that people have at the moment in the deco industry, being able to use the the software that people have, the native software that designers are used to. And then they actually interact with the AI set of tools that are available. And when they're not available, I mean it's incredibly and it is incredibly easy to set up your own AI system now. And that that's that's the shocking thing about it. It I mean, I've got a Mac Studio and it's just RAM and it's got it generates images. You know, I I can feed it data, and it will give me back more data. And it's it's stunning, uh, it's quite shocking, and it's the ri I'm absolutely I'm honestly so passionate about digital print because it offers so many opportunities for people to grow in all different areas.
SPEAKER_03:But this the same thing with AI that is with digital print, it's about the input, isn't it? And it's about what you do with it. And it it's it's view, it means it's a different beast to analog, and if it's treated in that way, it will add value. And particularly if you then see the opportunities and the themes for those problems, there's opportunity and value in in creating that change. Um, I really appreciate that, Royce. Uh we covered three different worlds, and Ken's given us a universe as well, I think, at the very beginning, which has been fantastic. I've learned a lot, I've really, really enjoyed it. Any sort of final thoughts and comments? So I know we had a question, I've got a question from someone around um corrugated adoption, which I was going to pose to Ken. But before we get to that, any other sort of final thoughts and themes, gentlemen? Ken, because you kicked off. I'll I'll let you start.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, sure. I mean, I think this was great. If you think about sort of the theme of the three of us, I thought it was it was really interesting, right? Because I talked a little bit about sort of hitting production, right? And that's when these markets go exponential. Mikhail talked really about, he mentioned the same issue, right? That he does work both on, you know, the early days scale up, but then how do you really scale it into production? To me, that's huge. Royce's comments I thought on AR are great because, you know, the workflow, and and I didn't really talk about this, Mikhail had it, it's a huge issue in that analog to digital transition, right? People that bring analog today, they are using, you know, spot colors, right? They've never seen a rip before. They've never, you know, Royce is laughing now, right? But but yeah, this is a huge issue. We have this is one of the issues. If we sell someone a system, okay, there's a whole adoption curve there, right? Which is really important. And we, we as our industry, also our company, we've got to get better and better at this. But but these are key enablers. But the AI end of upfront workflow is gonna enable further digital adoption by being able to drive more and more and more personalized design and shorter run and everything else for lower cost, right? At the end of the day, all three of us are about driving the cost down of the jobs that they have. That to me is is to me really interesting, right? Because we're all seeing the same thing from three different viewpoints.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. And the themes uh intersecting and slightly different. And and I guess the other factor that we haven't really talked about is at the end of the day, it's people, isn't it? And sometimes culture and people just get in the way of things and conversely, some take the lead, and that's with change. And the tipping point, there's a book out at the moment called The Revenge of the Tipping Point. You mentioned and that is a real thing that's gonna happen in these markets. Obviously, Mikhail, any sort of thoughts? You're you're Incotronics a leader in in the in the field you're in, you know. Obviously, you're exciting times for you.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I mean, um, I'm still only 21 years old. I have a long, long career ahead of me, and uh, but I'm extremely fortunate to be involved in Inkjet already at such a young age. And um, like I mentioned, I think that uh that we'll see the adoption of our technology becoming more and more common, and but there's a lot of challenges that are still needing many solutions. And um, yeah, I'm just glad that we are that I'm able here with um with my company to bring in as much input as possible to this.
SPEAKER_03:Fantastic. And like I said, Incatronic, um, going to be exhibiting at um future industrial print in Munich. You can see them there, they're gonna be speaking. Ken's gonna be speaking as well as his as is Royce. And Royce will be speaking as part of the AI for industrial print conference on 22nd. We've got a whole focus on AI and deployment and so on. And just sort of finishing off really future print industrial print, 21st, 22nd of January, we're getting a huge amount of interest in this event. It's really sort of bridging the gap between what's possible with Inkjet and the new application areas for industrial that are kind of moving on and becoming really sort of compelling, not least because of these kind of VUCA pressures we're experiencing, actually. That's uh playing into that we need that flexibility, agility, and there's a huge amount of um, I think, compounded interest in digitalisation, and we've just got that hopefully that nice tweet spot. So that coming together, as I said, 21st, 22nd of January, we'll email everybody with a follow-up email for that. Um, just before we sign off, there was a couple of questions. If you've got some time um just to finish off. So this one is what from Danieli, um, what technological disruption could drive digital printing to achieve widespread adoption and corrugated market, expanding beyond its current limited share after nine, ten years since first launches of single pass. I don't know if that's something you can can deal with there, that question, Ken?
SPEAKER_01:Uh sure. Okay, sorry. Um, you know, like I actually kind of mentioned this earlier. You know, it's been, I think from a supplier's perspective, a little disappointing. It's it's certainly grown. There's no debate. Digital is now a key solution within the corrugated markets. It's not taken the kind of share anybody thought it would. You know, Little Lamb is tough to beat, right? It's beautiful, right? It's actually not that expensive. And today, at least, you don't see, you know, the market pull yet from the Amazons and others trying to decorate short run boxes. This just getting started. It's just an it's it hasn't hit that tipping point yet, right? Because my gut is that it's really from a market adoption perspective. I think the technology is actually there. A number of suppliers have actually demonstrated that sort of stuff, even on you know, folded boxes and things like that, even at, you know, not quite production speeds, but maybe close. But the reality is the market today has not pulled it. And so I don't think we have a technology problem. I really don't. I think it's just more of is the is the market really there? Because folks, again, I think they've already demonstrated the tech a bit.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. Brilliant. Thanks, Ken. And just a final question around sustainability and how it shapes the future for industrial inkjet. How important is it? Is it a compelling or and do you think a fully sustainable and affordable ink could bring this more to market, I suppose? Sustainability.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, again, sorry, I'd be pleased to jump in, but but sustainability is really interesting. We could talk about it a lot of ways. You know, I think I think digital print in general is incredibly sustainable. You get rid of all of the waste of consumables. Think about, you know, when we print direct to an object, you get rid of the label, right? Imagine all that. It's not just the label, it was the line, or it was, you know, the amount of savings within digital sustainability perspective use. Take an example of the metal can market. In Canada, they've now outlawed, or at least certain parts of Canada, they've outlawed shrink sleeve. Why? Because when you go to recycle a can, the shrink sleeve actually catches fire, right? Very bad. So you're going to see things like shrink and other things begin to shrink, no point intended, right, in some of those markets. And direct to object, we feel will be a great sustainable solution there. You know, from an ink perspective, you know, today at least, most products, whether it be you know, large-scale, you know, plastic containers, metal cans, they're considered fully recyclable even when they're inkjet printed. Okay. But there are inks already on the market that are actually can come off during the recycling process, et cetera. So I think certainly it's a driver for digital. It's probably not the number one driver that drives someone to buy a printer, but it's certainly there. It's certainly there. And I think with digital, we have incredible upside from a sustainability perspective.
SPEAKER_03:Brilliant. Well, thank thanks for that, answer. And uh, gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us. Um, Ken, voice, really enjoyed that. Thank you very much. The recording will be available um in uh in a couple of hours, I'd imagine. And um, you know, come and see us at FuturePrint in Munich, 21st, 22nd of January. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much for all of you. Thanks a lot, Marcus.
