#349 - Ink at the Centre: James MacDonald on Why Partnerships Will Define the Future of Industrial Inkjet

James, how have relationships perhaps between equipment manufacturers, ink suppliers and other technology partners evolved as industrial inkjet has matured?

Yeah, it's quite often in the past, ink is probably the last thing that is put on the table when a project comes to the table.

Quite often, the system has already been designed, the print head has already been chosen, the curing system has been chosen, and the actual process itself is pretty much fixed.

Today, ink development is being recognised as more of an integral part of the print and press process.

We've got much, at an earlier stage, we've got more science and input into what can, even the printhead that can be used.

So the overall involvement of the complete technology ecosystem at an early stage will help to deliver that best overall solution at the end of the day.

Yeah, it's interesting what you said there.

I recall having around a decade ago, 10, 11 years ago, discussions with a variety of different people saying that often projects stutter because the ink is the last thing people think of.

It's interesting what you said that actually that's changed.

It's starting to become more integral at the beginning.

Is that right?

That is definitely the case, which makes it a lot more opportunities to look at things rather than trying to take something that we already have at And we've got a very short period to develop or get an ink into that system.

It gives us much more opportunity in the early stages to look at the ultimate solution and working closely and giving some input into even the curing system and potentially even the process itself.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so it's super important, isn't it, clearly.

Obviously, that suggests collaboration is kind of critical, isn't it? Why is collaboration across perhaps the wider technology ecosystem becoming increasingly important to the successful development and also commercialization of inkjet systems?

Well, I think with being able to share your development roadmaps, aligning these roadmaps with both your current and your future projects.

Again, as inkjet expanded to quite often non-traditional print sectors, it's successful to have partners who've got this collaborative problem-solving mindset.

This total integrated approach can help really shorten development life cycle the time cycle and accelerate the time to market which is what everybody really needs the sooner you get to market the better you start to earn

Yeah, and that's really important, isn't it? The team that you form with the right choices of technology, but you keep saying mindset, but it's that flexibility of mindset and being able to kind of create quickly, solve problems quickly, actually accelerates time to market.

And I guess reduces friction in terms of challenges that you might have to kind of overcome if you haven't done the collaborative piece right.