#OPS2022, DAY 2: INDUSTRIAL INKJET, AMAZON CUSTOM AND SWARM INTELLIGENCE FOR A BETTER UX

When “big players” meet start-ups and innovative ideas meet open ears, and developers and users discuss solutions to problems together, it’s OPS time. On the second day of the event, the Online Print Symposium once again highlighted exciting trends and dared to think outside the box. Alongside industrial inkjet, swarm intelligence for a better user experience and the question of the future of the “computer colleague,” there were plenty of other topics and ideas that were discussed on and off the stage.

While 15 years ago it was still scorned as an “inkblot process,” inkjet printing has now become a real all-rounder in the printing industry. Not only is a high level of quality achieved in inkjet printing today – it is also possible to do it at speeds that can sometimes rival offset printing. Not to mention the variety of possible substrates. To cut a long story short. Inkjet printing, and first and foremost industrial inkjet printing, is the current trend. So it was only logical that Carles Farre, CEO of HP Pagewide Industrial, was a genuine insider to speak on current developments in this field. According to him, the number of pages printed on high-speed inkjet has increased eightfold between 2011 and 2021 – from 50 billion pages to 440 billion pages. – and is expected to double again in the next five years. Amidst the challenges in supply chains and increased demands on the customer side, the value of digital production printing is growing tremendously.

Not only that, but the printing process also offers numerous other advantages, including the possibility of end-to-end inline production, significantly reduced “time to market” automation – and the option to create added value through the clever combination of inkjet technology and data analysis. In other words, mass customization.

According to Farre, the innovative leaps that inkjet printing has made recently – and will probably continue to make in the future – are primarily in the areas of quality, high-gloss papers, productivity and automation. But even today, productivity is already enormous – 7.5 hours instead of seven days is no longer something unrealistic, as the expert showed with a real customer example, but has long been possible.

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