On a hot July day in Wetzikon, a town about a half hour outside of Zurich, 60 members of the media from around the world gathered to hear from Jean-Pascal Bobst, CEO of The Bobst Group, and his team, as they unveiled their digit al strategy. The core element is the joint venture between The Bobst Group and Radex, a new digital business launched under the name Mouvent.

Long known for the reliability and durability of its printing and finishing equipment, Bobst has taken a measured approach to entering the digital print fray. Although the company has been mulling the digital approach since 2008, Mr. Bobst often states that he prefers to wait for market entry until he has products that are deserving of the Bobst name and will deliver against the high expectations customers have about the company.

Our readers may remember that Bobst was showing print samples at drupa 2012 and drupa 2016 of its digital direct to corrugated press that was in development with Kodak. That project has been officially cancelled due to the company’s belief it is not the right solution for the market. But the long development cycle and the relationship between the two companies was an experience both learned from. One example of this learning, we are told, is that Kodak’s OEM approach with its UltraStream continuous inkjet heads will focus on giving integrators/partners an evaluation head that is much more self-contained. We will cover more of this in a future article.