On March 26^th I attended an open house at Mark Andy’s global headquarters in Chesterfield, Missouri. The main reason I was invited was to be part of the formal introduction and “coming out” of the company’s Digital Series press. As open houses go Mark Andy did a nice job, CEO Kevin Wilken opened the proceedings welcoming a good number of label converters and prospects as well as members of the trade press. Mark Hanley of IT Strategies gave an overview of the labels market and painted a picture of promise for the growth of digital printing in the sector especially for Inkjet based offerings.

Mark made note of the number of Inkjet head manufactures and the money spent on R&D as a key driver of the technology for years to come. To illustrate that assertion he shared estimates of World Wide Production Label Press Sales for the two primary technologies, UV Inkjet and Electrophotography (EP). According to his estimates 2014 UV Inkjet based systems sales will be 166 systems while EP systems will be 304. In 2018 he estimates UV Inkjet based system sales to be 425 with EP sales at 491.

Let me give a point of clarification here, these projections are for “production level presses” and do not include those in the category of “Table Top” or “Bench Top” label presses which are also gaining in popularity and visibility. The EP category of presses are produced primarily by two companies, HP Indigo (liquid toner/ink) and Xeikon (dry toner) while UV Inkjet presses are offered by a much larger group of integrators and OEMs including Domino, Epson, Screen, Durst, FFEI/FujiFilm, INX and EFI/Jetrion; and now Mark Andy. The Mark Andy Digital Series falls into the smaller category of Hybrid Digital Presses that come from analog press manufacturers who are marrying their analog capabilities with full color digital. In addition to Mark Andy this group includes Nilpeter with their Caslon press and SPG (Stork) with their DSI system.