By Angelo Mandelli, Senior Product & Business Development Manager, Large Format & Flatbed EMEA Product Marketing, Ricoh Europe
Ricoh Europe, London, September 13 2024 – The industrial and decorative printing market is being reinvigorated with new technology advances supporting highly creative and innovative applications.
Latest developments are helping to value the sector at $112.9 billion in 2024 and drive a growth rate of 5.5% CAGR to 2029, according to Smithers’ The Future of Industrial and Decorative Printing to 2029. The report states that while the routes to market are very different to traditional printing, there are many opportunities for companies involved in the graphics and publication print sectors as well as equipment and consumable suppliers.
It points to growth being shaped by demand for construction, automotive and generally manufactured products that are increasingly incorporating print.
Driving this growth are three key trends:
1 Broadening of applications
The report states suppliers have developed new equipment that widens the applications, with the latest inks, coatings, and functional fluids providing new properties of flexibility, adhesion, and durability. They are opening up many new opportunities for printing on plastic, film, glass, wood, metal, ceramics, textiles, laminates, and composite substrates.
This is exactly what we have seen at Ricoh and why our newest inks deliver high adhesion, good white opacity and flexibility. They enable our portfolio of solutions to produce high quality, often personalised, results on a wide range of non-standard graphic art materials up to 10 cm thick. Creative applications being produced by our clients as result include window frames, lockers, vinyl records, and glassware.
2 Digitisation of manufacturing
Smithers highlighted, the digitisation of manufacturing processes – Industry 4.0 techniques -as a megatrend impacting global development. Print and finishing, it said, can be part of this, especially with workflow controlling unique decoration and then tracking the item as it is delivered to the consumer.
Digitisation with Ricoh technology can also help reduce production lead times, print only what is needed when it is needed, reduce waste, eliminate unnecessary storage and shipping, and allow for a responsive on demand approach that supports today’s market demands.
3 Transition from analogue to digital
The future will continue to be shaped by printing companies using their core printing skills in new markets. Smithers says that while development into industrial print applications is less common in Western markets the situation is starting to shift as traditional publishing and commercial print continue to decline.
At Ricoh we are seeing our strongest growth being driven by traditional screen printers adopting digital technologies to enable them to be more responsive and flexible. Digital supports a more cost efficient fast turnround print on demand business model that enables screen printers to respond in an agile way to their clients’ needs.
Enabling these operations to explore the possibilities of production on a wide variety of substrates and delivering differentiation, cost effectively, and sustainably, is Ricoh’s portfolio of large format systems. They include the roll to roll RICOH Pro™ L5160e and Pro™ L5130e Latex extended gamut systems with their options of orange and green inks; and the RICOH Pro™ T7210 with a table size of 3m by 2m and the roll to roll RICOH Pro™ TF6251 UV flatbed printer, with fast drying Greenguard certified inks. There is also the Flora X20 UV flatbed hybrid system powered by Ricoh that can print both rigid and flexible materials.
Supporting this creativity and driving productivity is the modular and scalable workflow solution ColorGATE Productionserver. The versatile software ensures smooth high quality production by managing accurate processing of graphically rich PDF content and reproduction of complex design files. There is also Color-Logic that provides access to 250 accurate metallic colours and simplifies the design and print production process in a fraction of the time and cost compared to traditional print embellishments.
So, no matter what you are thinking of printing, whether you are exploring the opportunities in window frames, lockers, large advertising boards or other exciting sectors, talk to our experts to see what your next new profitable application could be.
