No one predicted that wide-format inkjet would open a new market for printers for signage, vehicle wraps, building wraps and more.
Frank Romano
THERE HAVE been significant developments that make ink-jet a more viable process and now thrust it into the mainstream of the printing industry. The ink-jet market is growing in every direction, from flatbed and wide-format, to label, to transpromo, to commercial web and sheet. Print head manufacturers are accelerating their developments, and new inks are being introduced almost daily. Today’s ink-jet technologies are undergoing a number of significant quality and performance evolutions. These changes will combine with advances in new jettable fluids and inks, with improved materials handling and substrates—all of which are leading to a new generation of cost-effective printing solutions. But many of these solutions are due in the 2009–2011 time frame.
DIGITAL PRINTING has created new opportunities for print producers and print buyers alike. One of the biggest of these opportunities is personalized communication to an individual. Digital printing is the output end of customer relationship management and comprehensive databases. When customer and prospect information is used intelligently and creatively, it engenders larger numbers of calls, clicks and visits. It translates workflow into cash flow. There are 40 primary market segments in which business entities operate, from ad agencies to wholesale food (see list at end of story), and each segment has unique marketing, promotional and communication channels and approaches. The Technology Digital
THE WORLD of the printing press has changed. Color printing once mandated longer runs because the setup time (makeready) was an hour or two. When the first direct imaging (DI) press was introduced in 1991, its makeready was at 20 minutes, and over time it came down to less than 10 minutes. Today older presses are at about 60 minutes for makeready. On newer presses, Komori has a user who was quoted with six-minute makereadies. Heidelberg introduced a press with a seven-minute makeready—and heading to five minutes. MAN Roland customer VistaPrint boasts three-minute setups. KBA claims to be in the same league. A run
