The rapid pace of technical innovations for both cut-sheet and continuous-feed inkjet devices, new inks and substrates, and an array of market applications are all capturing attention of print service providers of all sizes. With all of the advances in technology, print service providers are asking “not if, but when” they should be making the inkjet investment. Service providers are also in search of strategies to make sure that they are optimizing their investment. Over the past several weeks, I interviewed a number of inkjet users to find out the critical strategies they are following to accelerate the path to profitability. 

During these interviews, companies that invested in inkjet were asked to provide their perspective on digital inkjet technology, in terms of where it is now, where it’s going, how it will likely impact the market of the future and how they are making it profitable for their organization. These inkjet users largely believe that high-speed inkjet is transforming color printing. Inkjet offers all the advantages of digital printing—personalization, electronic collation, just-in-time manufacturing, workflow automation, fast speeds, and high productivity—as well as the ability to produce higher-volume short run and personalized applications affordably. It is creating limitless opportunities for direct mail, marketing collateral, books, publications, and more. Color consistency, reliability, productivity, and quality have improved, and these are directly linked to new processes, inks, heads, coatings, and substrate options.

Each year, InfoTrends forecasts growth in digital pages. Global digital production color volumes totaled about 454 billion impressions in 2015. InfoTrends expects impressions to approach 895 billion in 2020, with inkjet representing 60% of total digital color volume. Cut-sheet electrophotographic digital color is also growing at a healthy rate. The dramatic growth that inkjet is enjoying is the result of continued innovations in roll-fed technology, the introduction of cut-sheet inkjet technology, new applications, a drive for more customized communications, and the cost-effective migration of offset volume to digital color based on significant improvements in speed, substrates, quality, and cost.