Last week’s announcement at packaging trade fair Interpack
that a Heidelberg spin-off had moved into the inkjet coding and marking market
makes one wonder what news the big H will have itself about its own inkjet
plans at Drupa.
Linoprint is described as an innovation project of Heidelberg. Its first
products are a single colour overprint unit the Linospot and the four-colour
Linocolor. Both are designed to for packaging applications, initially for
carton, label and blister pack coding, marking and personalisation. As these
are overprint units, not presses, they are designed to be flexible and to fit
anywhere in the packaging manufacturing process. The firm has also stated that
the printing units can be ganged together; either next to each other to cover
bigger widths or behind each other to provide higher speeds.
While Linoprint may be working with third-party packaging
machinery manufacturers and packaging firms to devise configurations that fit
their machinery and suit their needs, it seems highly unlikely that this Heidelberg developed and
manufactured technology isn’t being deployed by the German giant itself. After
all it’s got a rather good reputation for manufacturing the necessary paper
handling systems to mount the inkjet print heads onto, AKA printing presses.
Having got its fingers badly burnt with its earlier foray
into digital print, the NexPress venture with Kodak, it would be entirely
understandable for Heidelberg
to stay away from the digital fray again until it thought the time was
absolutely right.
With the news about Linoprint let out of the bag so close to
Drupa, Heidelberg
simply can’t remain silent about the implications of technology it has
developed that underly this product positioned in the packaging market to its
far more numerous commercial print customers.
Given the firm’s position as the market leader in commercial
print, if it makes a move into inkjet this Drupa it will be a serious indicator
that inkjet has come of age, and that we can expect some serious changes in the
shape of the print industry to follow.