Fujifilm Sericol's Terry Amerine presides over the Inca Onset demonstration at the company's Kansas City facility.

Last week Fujifilm Sericol America opened the doors of its new 8,000 sq. ft. digital wide format printing demonstration facility in Kanasas City, Missouri, to the trade media.

A world leader in screen printing inks, Sericol transformed warehouse space at its American headquarters to feature the lineup of digital wide format printers distributed by the organization (roll-to-roll and flatbed), highlighted by the Inca Onset—the $3 million high-speed flatbed UV digital inkjet printer that incorporates 576 Fuji Dimatix Spectra print heads and Uvijet UV inks from Fuji Sericol.

While illustrating the rise and forecast growth of digital inkjet—specifically UV inkjet technology and inks—Ed Carhart, CEO of Fujifilm Sericol International, reinforced the company's increasing focus on the digital inks market.

"It's critical that we innovate to thrive," says Carhart. "We are far from giving up on screen printing," he assures, while admitting that the screen printing market hit its peak in 2005 (the same year Fujifilm acquired Sericol) and will decline. He adds that while screen has been its core market, digital inkjet products are already making up 40 percent of Sericol's sales.
Bill Baxter, the CEO of Inca, is more direct, suggesting that screen printing is already "dead on its feet" and boldly forecasts that digital printing will substantially impact conventional offset printing in 10 to 20 years.

The media event included a panel with North American Onset users, including Scott Crosby of Holland & Crosby in Mississauga, Ontario. Crosby operates screen and digital printing side-by-side and considers the technologies to be complementary.

There are eight Onsets in production worldwide, three in North America, two of those in Canada, Holland and Crosby and Artisan Complete in Markham, Ontario. The machine in the demo centre is destined for an undisclosed customer location this fall.

Two days after the media event Inca announced it has upped the Onset's top speed by 25 percent (from 5,382 to 6,458 sq.ft./hr.) using a bi-directional printing technique. At drupa, EFI VUTEk previewed its DS series (Digital Screen) flatbed UV printer, with claims of up to 6,000 sq.ft./hr. That machine is slated to hit the market next year.

A time-lapse video of the Onset installation in the Kansas City demo centre condenses 20 days into two minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXgWJP566yQ