Domino Printing Sciences is gearing up for the next phase of inkjet development with a £6.5 million investment at its ink production facility in Liverpool. The 16,000m2 plant already produces 3 million litres of UV ink per year and will now be producing inks that suit the Brother Bitstar printheads being used on Dominos latest label presses and the corrugated inkjet press.
The company claims that this enables Domino to become the first digital printing supplier to take “full end to end control of the digital printing process, encompassing design and manufacturing of digital printing presses, printheads and UV printing inks, managing all aspects of end user deployment to ensure overall print quality”.
While this may be the case for UV inks for label presses, Fujifilm also develops its own printheads, presses and inks for large format UV printers and aqueous inks for commercial and packaging presses. It has sites in Broadstairs where UV inks are developed and produced and in Japan for aqueous inks. HP and Kodak can make similar claims for their inkjet technologies.
Like Fujifilm, Domino says becoming an end to end supplier has solid advantages. Chief operating officer Rachel Hurst says: “This investment will mean that our customers can trust in a single supplier for all their digital printing needs, with the confidence that inks have been specifically developed and optimised for our digital presses.”
Control of development means too that the manufacturer can respond rapidly to changing demands for new applications, substrates and to reformulate inks when shortages strike, when certain photoinitiators are restricted, for example.
She adds: “Supply chain challenges, and materials reclassification can prove very challenging when it comes to ink supply – but owning the development process allows us to more easily look ahead to source alternatives, providing greater assurance for customers of continued availability.”
Product quality is now under greater automated control as the entire line, including robotic handling, is completely automated. It produces inks for the N series label presses while a second line is focused on small batch production for specialist applications.
