InkJet Age

JUN 2014

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Fujifilm Inkjet Investment History In the early 2000s, Fujifilm recognized that the world of commercial and graphic arts printing would inevitably become a mostly digital world in terms of expenditures on equipment and supplies. As the world's fourth largest toner-based printing technology company, the natural inclination was to try to further leverage its investment in toner-based technology and increase its productivity performance capabili- ties to address the needs of commercial and graphic arts printers. It must have become apparent dur- ing that time that while dry toner-based printing served and continues to serve a valuable role, there where some physi- cal and economic limitations that would prevent it from ever fully matching the performance parameters of offset technol- ogy from Fujifilm's perspective. During this discovery process, it was concluded that inkjet technology would best complement dry toner for meeting the needs of high- volume commercial printers. At the core of any inkjet printing system is the inkjet print head technology. The inkjet print head is the heart of the press and tends to control the price of the final hardware system, especially in single-pass printing systems that can have upwards of 50 print heads. The application performance is driven by the inks—the fluid that determines output quality from substrate compatibility to print quality. Both of these disciplines require advanced science—a euphemism for saying they require significant time and investment. To reduce the time required for internal development, Fujifilm went on an acquisition journey. In a short span of time in 2005-2006, it acquired one of the leading independent inkjet print head manufacturers in the world, a company called Dimatix, fol- lowed by two of the world's leading inkjet ink manufacturers, Avecia and Sericol. Dimatix's advanced print heads are used in a broad range of applications by many of the leading printer manufacturers in the market, including several companies that many would perceive as direct competitors of Fujifilm. Similarly, this is true for Avecia and Sericol's inks, now grouped under the name Fujifilm Imaging Colorants. With subsequent investments, Fujifilm cumulatively invested more than $1 billion dollars during the last six years in inkjet printing technology designed to serve graphic arts service providers and commer- cial printers. At the core of this investment has been print head technology. A New Future Inkjet technology is on a journey to match analog printing technologies in terms of output quality and performance. While it has achieved this goal in some ar- eas and is on a path towards matching or exceeding analog printing technology in other areas, inkjet printing's real advantage is in its ability to create new print applica- tions. The Fujifilm J Press 720 is wider than most toner-based printers, allowing for greater productivity in the creation of new print applications such as consumer photobooks, just-in-time large format point-of-purchase advertising, and soon even highly versioned and customized packaging. Because the ability to create an end-to- end digital workflow, products such as the J Press require a rethinking of how com- mercial and graphic arts service providers operate their businesses. The operations of a traditional offset commercial printer are focused on long-run length jobs in part because the sales person commis- sion structure is rewarded on high print volumes. Since digital printing technology thrives on low-volume, high-frequency print jobs that, until now, have been antithesis of what com- mercial printers needed, it will most likely require a different operational infrastructure than the one for which commercial printers strive in analog opera- tions. What most commercial printers and graphic arts service providers will focus on first, however, is print quality. The output quality of samples provided by Fujifilm to I.T. Strategies look as good as any other standard bearing printing tech- nology, whether this is offset or the best output quality toner. One can expect Fujifilm to continue to develop further technology improve- ments, substrate compatibility expansion, and operation automation. Fujifilm is a conservative company; hence, we trust it is in its interest to prequalify buyers—who will, like Fujifilm, see this as a partnership journey; ones who will use a lot of ink, creating high-margin products. As stated upfront, inkjet technology is akin to rocket science in complexity. Fuji- film's full resources as a multi-multi- billion corporation are in place to help forward-looking commercial printers and graphic service bureaus transform their business, helping them move to digital printing with production inkjet printing technology and new business models re- quired to thrive profitably in what remains a $100 billion plus retail value of graphics output business in North America. ✚ CORE DISCIPLINES required in development of inkjet printing. 20 JUNE 2014 • INKJET'S AGE www.MyPRINTResource.com To read more about Inkjet Technology and Fujifilm, please download the complete whitepaper here: MyPRINTResource.com/11048548 QPsupp_19-20_0614 Inkjet Tech.indd 20 5/15/14 11:59 AM

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