Screen Printing - June/July 2017 - 23

From medical devices to consumer goods, the possibilities for direct-to-object decoration are vast.
Left, courtesy of EPS; middle/right, courtesy of Roland DGA.

2014. NMP Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of KHS, is
now responsible for the inkjet technology, which is marketed
as Direct Print Powered by KHS. The company collaborated
extensively with Agfa during the development of the system
(originally called the Innoprint) and achieved regulatory
approval for direct printing of PET beverage containers with
their low-migration UV inks while achieving full recyclability
of the printed product - an important factor in sustainability.
An early success for the Direct Print technology, widely
covered by the media, was the printing of PET beer bottles by
the Belgium brewery Martens Brouwerij in 2015 for a special
film promotion. The campaign incorporated augmented reality
via a smartphone app so that the characters printed on each
bottle could interact with each other, making them "talk."

Production caPable
The question that users often ask when considering a digital
technology centers on throughput: Can it match the existing
analog printing system and be incorporated without slowing
the whole production process? The answer, of course, depends
on what is being compared, and whether inkjet should even be
considered in this way. Is inkjet a replacement technology or
a complementary one? When evaluating the systems available
today, the answer, perhaps surprisingly, is both.
Several systems on the market today can meet demanding
throughput expectations. Printhead technology has advanced
considerably in terms of print speed and resolution. This is
evident in the single-pass industrial systems for flat/semi-flat
objects that are now part of production manufacturing lines
- for example, the Digapex series from Apex Machine, which
offers inline pretreatment and a variety of automatic loading,
unloading, and product handling options. Systems dedicated
to the production of specific objects have also been shown.
Sacmi has developed the ColoraCap, and EPS recently showed
a version of its XD070 for plastic bottle tops at the K Show 2016
- systems that both incorporate full variable-data capability.
In the mid-range, Machines Dubuit offers the 9150 (up to
800 pieces per hour) and the 972 (up to 4000 pieces per hour).
And inkjet is capable of even higher productivity. Plastic
beverage container decoration lines typically run at 36,000
units per hour. NMP's Direct Print industrial printers can be

integrated into PET bottle filling and packaging lines running
at 12,000, 24,000, or 36,000 bottles an hour. The design of
the systems is modular, with each color typically printed by
a separate rotating carousel containing 12 printheads. The
Krones Decotype R can print up to 24,000 specially shaped
units per hour and up to 15,600 cylindrical containers per
hour in six colors. At the next Drinktec show scheduled for
September 2017, both companies are expected to show the
next generation of these production systems.
In most installations at converter sites today, inkjet plays
a complementary role. However, the German company
Ritter - the first user of the D240 from Hinterkopf - has
taken a radical step and decided to replace its existing screen
printing lines with inkjet. Ritter has installed two D240 units
to print photorealistic images with variable data onto plastic
cartridges at their site in Germany. CEO Ralf Ritter has commented that "one D240 machine delivers the same output as
three screen printing lines." The company has also benefited
from an energy savings of more than 450,000 kilowatt-hours
per year and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 270 tons
since implementing the inkjet systems.

next StePS
Inkjet has conquered the challenges of printing onto a wide
range of flat and semi-flat products plus tubes, cones, and
even tubs - so what will be next? The answer, naturally, is
more complex shapes. Software development is underway to
print an image covering the whole surface area of a sphere. A
parallel step is decorating complex, undulating, or nonuniform
curved surfaces, such as industrial components. Implementing advanced, multi-axis robotics will be critical for this next
stage of inkjet's development, together with vision systems
and innovative software for dynamic surface mapping and
compensation. Further innovation in ink technology and process development will also be critical to opening new market
opportunities, in systems both large and small. We also expect
to see further exploration of hybrid technology devices that
maximize the strengths of inkjet and screen printing together.
At both the low and high ends of the market, the choices for
printers and convertors will continue to expand, creating new
opportunities to add value through product decoration.
june/july 2017

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