Sometimes, you need a marking solution to build a new product or expand the features of a production line. These projects evolve with excitement and ideas that can preset biases and expectations. While it is great to think about how you think a solution might come together, most inkjet print head and print bar providers recommend that you take a step back and focus on what you are trying to accomplish.
If your first reaction is that you know exactly what you want, great. But let’s test that idea. Before you talk to an integrator, consider this checklist. It’s based on guidance from industry integration veterans and can help you fast-path your project.
- What is the end goal of the product/solution you want to create? This is a big question and shouldn’t be a tactical description of a final product. It should be a strategic overview that considers the problem solved by your planned solution, where that problem sits in the market you serve, and the supply chain that supports it. If you have come at this from the other direction – starting with the cool solution without mapping it to a problem it solves – this is the time to rethink your approach.
- What is the ecosystem that the solution will live in? Think about the environmental conditions, including temperature, humidity, accessibility, and physical constraints, but go beyond the basics. What are the temperature and humidity swings? Is the intended use in the equivalent of a clean room, a factory floor, or outdoors?
- What are the print devices intended to print on? Gather the technical specifications. Will you print on paper, cans, bottles, board, vinyl, textured wood? Consider your product definition and use cases. Consider what your minimum viable product would do and how you might extend it.
Now you have the basics: A problem definition, a product definition, and some technical specifications for your product. This is information that integrators want you to be able to articulate so that they can ask questions and begin the process of modeling options.
Come back for part two (of three) of the Integrator’s Wish List.
