This month we peek inside six operations located across the country, from Montréal to Vancouver, that are producing projects on inkjet flatbed and flatbed/roll hybrid equipment. These digital printing companies are using printers from a wide range of manufacturers, including EFI VUTEk, Durst, Gandinnovations, HP Scitex, Inca Digital and Océ.
So exactly how big is the wide-format flatbed inkjet market? Considering that the technology is fairly young – and a number of the flatbed machines are hybrids that also produce roll-to-roll projects – it makes more sense to look at the overall market.
IT Strategies (www.it-strategies.com), specialists in the digital printing industry, estimate that the retail value of printed output from wide-format equipment is nearly $30 billion worldwide. Whether produced on roll-to-roll or flatbed printers – or hybrids that combine the capabilities of both – that’s a lot of substrate and gallons of inks, dyes, and solvents!
The “panel”
Let’s introduce our “panellists” beginning with our representative from Quebec: Lamcom Technologies in Montréal (www.lamcom.ca). In Ontario, we spoke to four companies, from east to west: SCL Imaging Group, Scarborough (www.sclimaging.com); ReproArt Imaging, Toronto (www.reproart.com); RP Graphics Group, Mississauga (www.rpgraphics.com); Global Imaging Inc., Mississauga (www.globalimaging.ca). And, last but not least, in British Columbia, we spoke to PacBlue Digital Imaging, Vancouver (www.pacblue.net).
Each of these companies has a unique combination of products and services. So what do they have in common? They use digital printing processes to produce everything from business cards to billboards, brochures to bus wraps. And, they have one or more flatbed printers in operation.
Next, let’s take a look at the equipment they’re using. From west to east:
- Gandinnovations Jeti 3150 – prints substrates up to 120” x 60” x 2” thick.
- Océ Arizona 250GT – prints substrates up to 98” x 49” x 1.89” thick.
- Inca Spyder 320 – prints substrates up to 126” x 63” x 1.2” thick.
- HP Scitex FB910 – prints substrates up to 98.4” x 80” x 2.75” thick.
- Durst 800 – prints substrates up to 96” wide x unlimited length x 2.75” (industrial version, standard version: 1.58”). Note: the Durst 800 is a “continuous board printer.”
- VUTEk QS2000 – prints substrates up to 80” wide x (no length given) x 2” thick.
The good news about flatbed printers is that you can run pretty much anything through them to be printed, with a few constraints. The substrate has to be – well – flat, and depending on the equipment, up to 2.75” thick. While you can print something of substantial thickness, these printers have inkjet heads that need good clearance over the substrate and something that is wavy, curvy, bumpy or twisted is going to be trouble.
Changing workflows
Just a little over two years ago, in October 2006, Web Consulting (a UK consulting firm with a North American office in Boston that specializes in the global inkjet printing industries) published a study that reported 70% of the shops producing wide-format inkjet graphics believe that volumes of mounting and laminating work will grow or stay the same for the next five years.
Why is this important? Such information shows how quickly changing technology can affect workflows. It turns out that flatbed inkjet printers are eliminating a huge percentage of the mounting and laminating work that printers have done in the past. It will be interesting to see what the next report shows.
Zohrab Tatikian, president of ReproArt Imaging, has been producing projects on a flatbed printer for the last several years. ReproArt used to print images on four smaller roll printers and then mount and laminate them. In fact, 95% of the images coming off those machines were mounted and laminated, only about 5% didn’t require finishing. According to Zohrab, “mounting and laminating has dropped drastically; now 80% of our jobs are printed direct to substrate on the Scitex FB910.”
Not only does the flatbed printer offer huge efficiency improvements for projects that would have been mounted on rigid substrates, its new capabilities also expand product offerings.
Peter Spring, president of SCL Imaging Group, found that even with multiple roll printers his company didn’t have the ability to produce the range of products his customers wanted; SCL was outsourcing more work than it produced internally.
“We made the decision then to buy a flatbed and sales boomed. We didn’t want to cannibalize our roll business,” says Peter, “instead, the flatbed bolstered it.” The strategy was so successful, that SCL invested in a hybrid Durst 800.
“We produce projects for a client who wants a die-cut standing piece,” says Brian Auty, CTO, RP Graphics Group, “and with the Inca Spyder 320 we can buy the corrugated cut-to-shape and then print on it. We print exactly what the customer orders – no overs, no waste.”
Changing product mix
Flatbeds are extremely efficient machines; eliminating mounting and laminating is just one advantage. Others include very quick make ready, the ability to print multiple panels at the same time and a wide substrate base. Face it; you’re not going to be able to put a door through a standard roll-to-roll printer!
True workflow efficiency comes from producing longer runs of standardized products fast, and this type of technology is butting heads with traditional screen-printing. All the contacts I spoke to agreed that for long runs, screen-printing is the best option; however, for shorter runs – 100, 500, or even higher – it’s possible to be very competitive. Throw in versioning or variable data and screen-printing can’t compete.
While François Boissonnault, Lamcom, who runs five VUTEk QS2000 machines, is busy printing election signs, it seems the most common substrates printed on are products like Coreplast, Fomecore, Sintra, Gator, and styrene or corrugated.
Peter Spring reminded me, “we are running a business and have to pay for this equipment.” He says, “to do that you need to drive a lot of volume, cut costs, and run it three shifts a day.”
He’s right, but what about the more unusual, and even exotic, substrates? There seems to be no end to creativity at this point, as long as the item is flat and of the right thickness – from 1.2” to 2.75” – someone, somewhere has printed on it!
We all have stars in our eyes and to print something for flagship retail stores, major development projects, high-profile tradeshow booths or even the Academy Awards or the Olympics brings pride to the producer.
Each company I spoke to had printed on wood panels or doors, but PacBlue didn’t just print a door here and there – they printed 537 of them! Paul Talbot, PacBlue, had the opportunity to print doors for a Vancouver developer.
“Originally, this was specified as a vinyl project by the designer, but we were concerned about how permanent vinyl would be for a high-end project like this,” says Talbot. “When we told them it was possible to print directly on the door, they were really excited, and when they saw the sample door they were blown away.”
The developer wanted to do something different to make its condo project stand out, so a juried design contest was held to find 10 images that would be offered to buyers for the front door of each unit. The entire run included more than 150 of one image, with the remainder spread across the other nine images.
Projects like this require a lot of coordination between the substrate supplier and the printer. For example, the priming and undercoating of the doors were critical; the door manufacturer had to take care not to leave fingerprints on the paint surface or they would show in the finished image.
Solid substrates like doors and glass are heavy. Each door PacBlue printed on weighed 90 pounds and it took two people to load each one on the flatbed. That’s a small crew compared to the four or five it took to load glass panels for a museum project at SCL.
Scott Saunders, Global Imaging, used his Arizona 250GT for a project that required an extremely high-quality image. Imagine printing on a high-definition TV screen for a promotion for HDTV. Not only was the client promoting the highest resolution available for television, they wanted the image on the screen to represent what their customer would see at home. The screen was part of an entire line of graphics Global Imaging printed for the project that included interior display panels and a vehicle wrap for two 36-foot mobile showrooms. No question that the viewer would be “up close and personal” looking at these images!
Each company I talked to had printed on a variety of substrates including carpet tiles, mirrors, ceramic tiles, glass and Plexiglas, rubber mats, brushed stainless steel, die-cut binder tabs – anything that lies flat. Some of the more unusual projects included metal video cases, an unassembled IKEA desk, an iPod and Velcro – both parts: the hook and the pile.
Let’s be careful out there
The inkjet heads on this equipment travel across the face of the substrate at an elevation that can be measured in hundredths or thousandths of an inch. Very small irregularities in the surface can cause a “catastrophic head strike”; a term that brings to mind the violence of a car crash. And the expense‚Ķ
The knurled edge on a piece of steel, a slightly raised area on a door, a miscalculation – any of these – can cause the moving head to come to a sudden stop. Unfortunately, a head strike falls under the category of “operator error” and is not covered by a warranty.
The Océ Arizona handles a head strike quite gracefully. The print heads are recessed inside a head unit, and when the unit hits the substrate the machine simply raises the gantry and parks the unit. No heart-rending crash‚Ķno expensive head replacement.
The future
Flatbed inkjet technology has changed rapidly over the last five years and is still maturing. Drupa 2008 was called “the inkjet drupa.” Equipment is getting bigger and faster, and hybrid machines offer the best of both roll-fed and flatbed production.
Users are discovering that the investment in either a flatbed or flatbed/roll hybrid can really pay off in terms of efficiency and flexibility. Commercial and digital printing service providers are using flatbed printers to move into territory that used to be claimed by screen-printing companies. Screen printers are finding they can’t ignore digital technology and are adopting flatbed inkjet.
The next few years will see wide-format output moving from screen and roll-to-roll inkjet to flatbed production – what share of that $30 billion market will be yours?
