Digital printing has made inroads in so many markets. The advantages are clear; the ability to quickly create customized printed items, sometimes only one, is a huge benefit.

Inkjet printing has taken over some key markets along the way. Billboards are now virtually all printed by digital printing. Ceramic tiles are now inkjet printed.

There are markets where digital printing is emerging. Packaging is one segment; textiles are another, as is direct-to-object printing.

With its new InterioJet printer, Agfa is staking a claim in the wood lamination business. The InterioJet 3300 printer, which recently received an European Digital Press Association (EDP) award in the category Industrial Print & Finishing Solutions, uses Agfa’s water-based inks for short to medium production runs of décor paper for laminate surfaces.

Mike Horsten, Agfa’s business manager for InterioJet, noted that Agfa serves a very broad and diverse set of printing markets, including commercial, newspaper and packaging printers. For sign and display printing companies, Agfa sells fully integrated large-format inkjet printing systems, consisting of matched printers, workflow software and inks.

The InterioJet 3300 printer falls under the category of Industrial Inkjet, and it is an interesting segment with lots of unique applications.

“Our Industrial Inkjet business unit focuses on inkjet applications where printing is part of an industrial production process,” Horsten said. “We take an integrated solution approach (printer, workflow, inks) in some cases, and an inks only-approach in other cases. Either way, we are in contact with the target industry to make sure our solutions fit their needs and economics.”

The latest addition to Agfa’s industrial printing offering is the InterioJet for HPL (High Pressure Laminate) hard surfaces.

“InterioJet is a printing system for the HPL (High Pressure Laminate) surfaces market,” Horsten said. “This means, flooring, kitchen cabinets, outdoor cladding, furniture and other hard surfaces that you would see around you today. Currently we are just starting with the conversations in the Americas and TISE is the first place where Agfa will be exhibiting with this technology. We have, however, already installed several systems around the world, in China, Russia and Belgium.”

Horsten observed that there are key advantages of digital printing for laminated surfaces, including shorter time to market for new designs; the ability to produce smaller batches from 1sqm to 100.000+ sqm, including trial batches for sampling; eliminating the need for creating expensive gravure rolls per design; reducing production time and cost; immediate changeover to the next design; and beign able to recue inventory.

Horsten said that the InterioJet system was designed from a production side and not from the printer side.

“We believe that in order to facilitate the shift from analog to digital, we need to adapt the digital to the analog workflow,” he noted. “We are just one small part of the manufacturing process, so we need to be compliant with it. Using the same color gamut inks as gravure, using the same impregnation paper the laminate manufacturers are familiar with and using the same type of workflow makes InterioJet one of a kind in the industry.”

Agfa has developed water-based inks for InterioJet, and Horsten said these offer numerous benefits for printers.

“The InterioJet water-based inks don’t contain a binder, therefore giving the melamine resins easy access to the paper with no blocking due to filming of the inks creating a barrier,” said Horsten. “This results in better impregnation and faster work processes. Due to this, we can use lighter paper and thus less melamine impregnation is needed per sqm/sqf, which is a direct savings to the bottom line of the manufacturer.

“Also, the inks use the default gravure colors used in décor printing,” he added. “This allows the printer to generate the same quality images and the same color gamut they have known throughout the years of rotogravure.”

While noting that this is a new market, Horsten sees plenty of potential for digital printing.

“Digital technology is just entering and we believe we have tackled the challenges together with the industry,” Horsten said. “The result is that we are now ramping up and offering this technology to a market that has been waiting for the digital conversion. Do I foresee growth? Indeed! The billions of sqm’s printed today are ready to be converted.”