With an eye on the growing European inkjet ink market, INX Digital Czech a.s. recently celebrated the grand opening of its new 43,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Prague. The new facility will serve customers in Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA).
 
Bryce Kristo, CFO and senior VP, general affairs, of INX International Ink Co., said that INX Digital provides a full array of products, including wide format, super wide format, hardware and technical services to distributors, end users and OEMs. He noted that the new facility allows INX Digital to now produce inks in Europe.
 
“Expansion of INX Digital Czech was primarily driven by INX’s overall commitment to the European market,” said Kristo. ”We realize that we need to add capabilities and resources to the level of our North American and Asian groups in Europe in order to provide to our customers with the products and services we can provide that they require to be successful.
 
“The new facility allows our European operations to be independent from our US and Japanese manufacturing sites,” added Kristo. “Although we work collaboratively as a global unit, this facility will allow us to have manufacturing capabilities in North America, Europe and Asia for inkjet inks. This should help us provide consistent products globally without long lead times or delays.”
 
“This new facility is testimony to the growth of our business and the further expansion of our global market share,” said Paolo Capano, EMEA director of sales for INX Digital Italy. “We have invested capital resources to extend our local manufacturing facilities to better serve our customers.”
 
The Prague facility manufactures the full range of inkjet inks, including solvent-based, water-based and UV-curable digital inks. It includes two labs for R&D and quality control, as well as production and warehouse areas.
 
“Our production lines are outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment for all of our products, including alternative and OEM inks, and we now have a greater color universe to work from, in addition to greater production up time and the reduction of waste,” said Avi Bukai, managing director for INX Digital. “The increased warehouse space provides us with greater capacity to produce more product for our customer base, and I expect our R&D capabilities will allow us to satisfy more customer requests.”
 
“Since the formation of INX Digital, we have been adding to our European product offering,” Kristo noted. “We have gone from a solvent wide format distribution network to being a provider of super-wide solvent inks, UV inks, textile inks, and hardware offerings supported by technical service.”
 
Kristo added that the new facility allows for expanded manufacturing, distribution and R&D capabilities.
 
“The Czech facility works as one with our Milan sales and technical group, acting as the manufacturing, research and distribution element of the combined group,” said Kristo. “We are particularly pleased with the high quality of people we have both in Prague and Milan.”