LFP - Large-Format-Printing

Announcement of the Opening of the JP Demonstration Center and TA/IP Lab Centers

Monday 25. July 2016 - Mimaki Engineering Co. Ltd. (President and Representative Director: Kazuaki Ikeda), a leading global manufacturer of wide format inkjet printers and cutting plotters, announces that it will open the opening of JP Demonstration Center (JP demo center) in Tokyo, and also will open TA/IP Lab Center at our headquarters located in Tomi-city, Nagano.

As an innovator, we have been among the first to develop and market industrial printers for the sign/graphics (SG), industrial product (IP), and textile/apparel (TA) markets, in which we have always been the market leader. Digital printing has already made its way into the SG market. In addition, in recent years, the IP and TA markets have also seen a gradual transition from conventional analog plate-based printing to digital printing. Digital printing, which eliminates the need for plates, has considerably reduced the time that must elapse from product planning to commercialization, and has also enabled on-demand production, which allows our customers to print product in response to trends in received orders while eliminating the need to carry inventory. With the spread of digital printing, there has been a shift from mass production using analog printing in the low-cost production remoted areas, to high-mix low-volume production using digital printing in city areas closer to markets, such that products can be offered with short delivery times and with low transportation costs. As such, there has been a global expansion in the number of production sites using digital printing.

With the aim of providing useful business proposals that can accommodate our customers’ issues and needs quickly along with the expansion of digital printing market, we will open JP demo center, TA Lab center and IP Lab center. The JP demo center, to be opened in central Tokyo, is equipped with printers, mainly large-sized types for the SG, IP, and TA markets. In the demo center, specialists who are knowledgeable about individual markets offer product information and demonstrate machine operations. Furthermore, we open the TA and IP Lab Centers at headquarters located in Japan and plan to open such centers globally in the future. In order to provide useful solutions to our customers, in the TA and IP Lab Centers, we conduct highly specialized tests utilizing printers and specialized instruments that are not installed at the JP demo center. We will endeavor to ensure that the JP demo center, TA Lab Center, and IP Lab Center cooperate with one another while taking advantage of their respective characteristics, so that we can provide optimum solutions to the problems facing individual customers.
1. JP Demonstration Center

At present, the Tokyo Branch Showroom mainly exhibits our flagship products and offers demonstrations. In addition to the Tokyo Branch Showroom, we will open the JP demo center. This will have an exhibition area of about 550 m2, in which large-sized machines designed for the SG, IP, and TA markets are installed. Specialists who are knowledgeable about the individual markets will provide customers with practical explanations of the functions and applications of these machines, and will also be capable of providing more detailed demonstrations and proposals to suit the customers’ environments, media, and so on. The Center will collaborate with the TA Lab Center and IP Lab Center to respond to customers’ needs and problems by taking a more specialized approach, including various tests and verification tasks.
2. TA Lab Center

Textile digital printing requires finer finishing, and because of the wide variety of materials involved, it also demands skill and experience in the pre/post treatment stages. In addition, the availability of the chemical agents, water, and post-treatment devices necessary for pre/post processing varies from area to area, making it necessary to establish know-how that is specific to a given area. While textile printing with digital printers continues to expand globally, there have been concerns that color matching and the optimization of the pre/post treatment for each area will incur delays, so that the potential increases in production rate that digitalization promises cannot be fully realized. Thus, in an effort to support the globalization of textile production using digital printers, we will open TA Lab Centers, with inkjet printers for the textile/apparel market, in five countries including Japan and the leading textile producing markets of India, China (Shanghai), Italy, and Turkey. We will work to ensure that the Centers conduct practical tests using the chemical agents, water, and post-treatment devices that are available locally, and will propose optimum solutions to suit our customers, based on the results. Our goal is for these Centers to reduce the time that has been required for color matching and the optimization of the pre/post treatment, supporting customers in increasing their operational efficiency through the speedy production that is inherent to digital printers. In addition to the above-mentioned tests, we also plan to conduct weatherability, color-fastness, and other evaluations and measurements in collaboration with educational institutions. We will also work on the creation of demonstrations and samples with actual machines, the offering of training before and after the introduction of our printers, and research and development related to new technologies and applications. Furthermore, we will research and develop the new technology and printer applications. In July 21st, the first TA Lab Center is opened at headquarters located in Japan and other centers will be opened as shown below*1.

*1: Schedule for opening overseas TA Lab Centers.
Italy and Turkey: September 2016, Shanghai (China): October 2016, and India: November 2016
3. IP Lab Center

We predict that UV-curable inkjet printing will expand in a wider variety of industries in order to meet high-mix low-volume production. With the expansion of the digital printer market, we expect to be able to respond to the need to decorate wider variety of materials. Thus, we will open IP Lab Centers in Japan and other countries*2, where printability verification and evaluation can be conducted and proposals can be made, so that we can increase our market share and work on offering solutions in response to customers’ issues and needs. In August, we will open the first IP Lab center at headquarters located in Japan. At the IP Lab Centers, the compatibility verification and evaluation between inks and materials (printing on complex surface shapes, etc.) can be conducted, as well as the verification of the optimum printing conditions when using genuine inks and genuine primers on customer-supplied substrates, together with the verification of printing processes to suit the individual special needs that customers may have, such that proposals can be made. Furthermore, we will undertake the verification of technologies for printing on new materials, as well as the development of new applications based on the voice of customers, thereby continuing to propose new values in the markets as an innovator.

*2: We plan to open overseas IP Lab Centers in following countries
Shanghai (China), Taiwan, Sydney (Australia), Singapore, India, Indonesia, Netherlands, Germany, North America and Brazil