Domino plans to earn a quarter of its group turnover from digital printing to in the next few years on the back of new products the company believes will significantly increase its market share in the expanding digital print for packaging arena.
Domino has invested €2.2million in a refurbished digital print facility in Cambridge including a new showroom and demonstration area in which the showpiece is its latest inkjet label press first seen in 2009 but now, the company says, developed into a machine to compete with conventional UV flexo. So far 23 have been sold and the company is buoyant at the amount of work its customers have transferred away from flexo.
Group managing director Nigel Bond says Domino, which garners 88% of its £335m turnover from its traditional coding and marking business, expects to increase the digital print contribution from 12% to 25% “within a few years”. “This is transformation and we will continue to invest in R&D. As digital printing and packaging become closer together, this is a perfect area for us; it ticks all the right boxes.”
Philip Easton, director of the digital printing division, adds: “We have seen many customers who have been struggling in conventional printing who have increased their business by going to digital, whether transactional, variable data printing or whatever it might be.”
“In labels especially we have been been surprised by how small printers are buying this technology. People with a €1m turnover are spending half a million euros. They see it as a vehicle to grow their business,” he said.
The N610i digital label press is a key machine, unveiled at Labelexpo last September with an opaque white in tandem heads and space for orange and violet printheads to create a seven-colour press later this year. “Our customers are moving more of their flexo work onto digital. Roll changes are a significant variable in output and productivity. We have one customer with this press who is now running all their jobs in two days and is now looking for new business,” Mr Easton said.
One of the breakthrough with the N610i is the opaque white. The Kyocera KJ4 head that Domino uses (as does Screen) Is suitable for printing Domino’s white ink. Domino has worked on ink formulations for 18 months settling on a tandem head arrangement. Product manager Jon Pritchard says: “This competes with flexo. Flexo can take 20 minutes to an hour to set up; this is three minutes. Flexo can take 200 metres to set up, with this you can go down to zero. Flexo can be £400 to set up and if you increase the number of jobs, you increase waste, that all against this, which now has same size reel.”
The white ink issue is a key one to the success of an inkjet label press which will need to print on clear films with white providing the surface for printing subsequent colours. The white needs the opacity to prevent show through, but the pigment particles for white are larger and heavier than normal ink, so can both settle and lead to blocked nozzles. Head developers have worked to prevent this occurring.
The first to reach the market was the Xaar 1001 head, launched in 2007, and appearing in the EFI Jetrion from 2009 with a first installation the next year. It is also used by Durst, FFEI, INX, JF Machines and SPG among others. The design of this head includes Xaar’s TF technology and side shooter architecture which keeps a constant flow of ink past the back of the inkjet nozzle during drop ejection. The constant motion prevents sedimentation and nozzle blocking in heavily pigmented inks like white.
The head needs to be matched to the ink, something which EFI has done in its Jetrion division and which Domino has spent 18 months working on for the Kyocera head. As with all inkjet developments it is the combined impact of head, ink and substrate that determines the success of the finished product.
Domino has opened a showroom and training facilities for digital presses.
