Grafica News - Mar 2016
Industrial printing: Indispensable & ever growing!
Imagine your average day. Your smartphone, Tablet, TV, washing machine, refrigerator, AC, crockery, tiles, laptop, PC, bike, car, tractor, electronic gadgets, electrical equipment & home appliances ...
Everything that has some kind of function contains to some extent, industrial printing!

“It might not be ink that is deployed, it could something like silicon that helps the device to work, but it is industrial printing in that it uses a process such as screen printing to integrate an aspect of the process that enables the product to work,” says Frazer Chesterman, Co-Founder, FM Brooks, part of the Mack Brooks Exhibitions Group, Organisers of 'InPrint' Industrial Printing Expo, UK, in an online interview with Shripada Bhat, Editor, Grafica News India, as he announces the forthcoming mega industrial printing expo titled “InPrint 2016” to be held on 15-17 November, 2016, in Milan, Italy.
“It is an exciting time for print service providers to be involved with industrial print. The interest in this segment is high, (for instance it is now the third largest market for venture capital investment after clean technologies and social media),” he adds.
Interview:
Please explain the
meaning and
scope of
industrial
printing:
Since the launch of
the InPrint Show
back in 2012 we have been asked
'What is Industrial Print'? Or how
do we define it? Industrial printing
is where printing is used within the
manufacturing process. This could
be functional or decorative and
may be the printing of a fluid,
substance and not necessarily an
ink. In terms of printing
technologies this includes screen, specialty, digital, inkjet and 3D.
Being an integrated part of the
production line itself, industrial
print refers to a procedure whereby
ink or another liquid substance is
printed or deposited onto a
product. It is being applied in
various industries: from functional
print that enables an electronic
product or device, part of a highly
technical manufactured product or
an individually designed item, to
decorative print onto various surfaces such as wood, glass or
plastic, Special technologies such
as 3D print are used by industrial
designers for prototyping, or to
generate single unique products –
example might be in medical or
dentistry. Our definition includes
also packaging as an industrial
process.
Industrial print is both defined by the applications that it is active in and the speed and productivity it can achieve. Quality is paramount within industrial print but if printing is to be used within industrial environments then it must be fast to be correctly classed as industrial.
Printers must aware that whilst shorter runs of products is a trend within manufacturing, a one off print of a ceramic mug or tile or tshirt that is done at a gift shop, is not industrial printing.
Where do you see industrial
print within the overall
printing sector?
In the manufacturing industry,
there is a strong demand for
technological innovations, supported by considerable pullfactors
from the consumer side. At
the same time, the developer
community is bursting with
energy. For printers, new business
opportunities in the industrial
sector are enhanced by the
continually growing range of
applications amid evolving
technology for applying inks,
coatings, liquid & 3D material to
more and more substrates.
What's the statistics?
Industrial print benefits from
automation and is the only sector
of the printing technology industry
to show a two-figure growth rate.
Back in 2012, the industry experts
- I.T Strategies made a realistic
estimation that the value was then
around the $100 Billion mark. And
that they predicted growth of
around 20% in 10
years to $120 Billion.
This valuation is a
direct estimation of
the value of the print,
not the entire value
of the production of
any one industry.
Since then they have
revised this upwards
as growth has
accelerated to 36%
growth for the year
2014-2020 due to
demand for certain
products and an
increase in adoption
for inkjet which is
complementing
rather than
dislodging
traditional industrial
print technologies.
What is the role of
screen printing
technology in
industrial
printing?
We see the continued
importance of screen printing as a
functional printing process,
particularly within automotive and
electronic manufacturing. As these
sectors grow and innovation
continues particularly with smart
technology, screen printing
remains in a very strong position
and will continue to grow in
demand.


What about Inkjet
technology?
We also obviously continue to see
the growth and demand for inkjet
within manufacturing. The show
sees plenty of examples of inkjet
printing onto objectives both from
a packaging perspective (direct to
shape) and within other
manufacturing applications such
as automotive shape. In addition
inkjet and digital continues to grow
within décor applications. Whilst
the growth may be difficult to
predict the nature of consumer
trends and a demand for mass
customisation means inkjet is
increasing in its use in markets
such as laminate flooring and
luxury vinyl tiles.
What are the challenges of
Functional print?
Functional print for inkjet is at a
more formative stage of
development as the demands are
considerable. However, in
electronics, pharmaceutical and
medical are reckoned to change
soon. Demands for functional print
are considerable, because often the
ink or fluid is expected to perform
both a functional and decorative
role and might have to bend
around a shape up to 90 degrees
whilst withstanding temperatures
of 180 degrees C! This is
challenging ink chemistry to
develop hybrid solutions and new
formulations to meet this demand.
It takes time and investment, but I
know ink makers are rising to this
challenge and have a long term
development view.
Tell us about your InPrint
exhibitions:
InPrint is the exhibition for
industrial print technology. This
event is exclusively designed for
this emerging and highly
promising sector of the print
industry – a key marketplace for
state of the art functional and
decorative printing in industrial
production, including speciality,
screen, digital, inkjet and 3D
technologies.
InPrint-2015 in Munich had focussed on manufacturing, not traditional print. Inkjet and digital printing was given plenty of attention at InPrint but also screen and pad printing. The fact is that the highly developed nature of screen printing and its unrivalled quality remains a very important part particularly of functional printing. For instance smart phones, a highly innovative technology contains both functional and decorative screen printing. Functional screen is used in the device itself to print layers of conductive materials to help the working of the product. Decorative screen is deployed for the back and the white around the screen itself.
Tell us about 3D printing:
I believe that the true value of 3D
is in industrial printing where it
already plays an active part for
specialist component production
and prototype manufacturing. We
can see that inkjet printing onto 3D
objects (printing onto shapes with
inkjet) will grow both for
packaging applications such as
cosmetic cylinders and automotive
parts.
So, our InPrint expo was about developing technologies and yes 3D has perhaps a few different interpretations. InPrint had showcased industrial print technologies for screen, speciality, digital, inkjet and 3D printing for the application segments functional, decorative and packaging printing. The emphasis of InPrint was very much on product decoration, ie functional printing that goes onto other objects, and less so on 3D printing (ie creating shapes by additive or subtractive means). Quite a few companies that appear in the 3D search filter are not actually involved in real 3D printing.
And what about 2D?
Even the 2D inkjet itself was
almost a kind of silent revolution.
It has quietly changed 60% of ceramic production to shift entirely
to inkjet within the space of 4 years
and is mooted to using inkjet other
transferable markets such as
textile, wood decor, glass decor
and other surface imaging
applications.
Why?
Because I think there is a
coalescence of consumer demand
and technological maturity. There
is a definite need for
manufacturing to generally reduce
its response time, to be closer to
customers and to be able to meet
demands of local taste as well as
increasing time to market whilst
delivering good enough quality.
With the advent of single pass
digital inkjet this is now a real
possibility for speed, quality and
cost. Economics is still the most
effective driver of change assuming
quality is good enough.
Do you think Inkjet itself is
not regarded as being a
complete replacement
technology?
No. To some extent it provides a
specific solution that in itself gives
new production advantages. For
example, it gives designers the
chance to express themselves
creatively without the heavy risk
burden of carrying a lot of stock.
This trend towards localisation of
production is really suiting inkjet
and we expect this to grow.
Currently, this is a more noticeable trend in packaging and décor.
Decor:
Probably industrial
printing has been involved in some
way in the decoration and creation
of either, a wood floor, a textile,
wallpaper or indeed furniture.
Industrial printing plays a
tremendous role in the decoration
of our environments, increasingly
so as the shift towards selfexpression
continues and
customisation is placed at a premium. In addition, decorative
applications such as wood flooring
is seeing the beginnings of a
revolution in production where
floors can be printed to order, to
suit a specific design without prepossessing
the need for a long
production run of gravure printed
product which tends to be more
conservative and less customised
to taste and very time-consuming
to set up.
Decor is almost as big as it
encompasses surface imaging and
the drivers for personalised spaces,
customised finishes and self
expression from the consumer
market as well as the need for
producers to create product cost
effectively are meaning inkjet is
being used significantly in this
area. Digital printing technology is
incredibly important in decorative
printing as a complement to
analogue.
Packaging is part of industrial printing: Packaging is the single biggest category in industrial printing. It has tremendous importance in product sales and product identity meaning the personalised capabilities of printing directly to an object gives marketers value and it enables more effective targeting. With innovation in special inks for screen printing on high end luxury products as well as the increasingly visible direct to shape inkjet revolution, this segment is an exciting and buoyant one within industrial print.
Finally, tell us about InPrint
2016 – Milan, Italy:
InPrint 2016, the Industrial
Printing technology exhibition will
take place on 15-17 November 2016
in Milan, Italy. It will feature some
150 exhibiting companies
attracting visitors across the globe.
Details are available on our
website: www.inprintshow.com
