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Friday May 31st, Fujifilm had an award show at the Hyatt hotel in Düsseldorf - and one of the winners was Stephan de Vries from Fotofabriek in the Netherlands. First and foremost, congratulations - and second, in this interview you will learn more about how Fotofabriek won the Innovation Award by making a children's book product using AI.  

Growth is given at Fotofabriek in the northern Netherlands, and with an increased order intake, technology needs to adapt. Chris De Jonge was featured on INKISH a year ago, and with more than 15,000 daily orders, Fotofabriek is very happy with Ultimate Tech. Chris De Jonge explains how Impostrip, Bindery, and the dynamic scaling of the solutions help them achieve growth :-) Enjoy!  

In the North West of The Netherlands, you will find an exciting company called Fotofabriek, which we covered a few months ago. Fotofabriek produces photo and personalized products, as you can hear from the name. Still, they also have a very comprehensive IT department that has developed a platform called Instant Design Tool. The tool enables customers to create print designs, and as Carmen Martina explains in this film, the software is a freemium version that allows customers to test before buying. The software output (PDF or PNG) can be printed with any printer, or you can route your work to Fotofabriek - super interesting and worth checking out!

How can you explain software that you can hardly see? In this case, we have told a story about a successful company based in Groningen, in the North West of The Netherlands. Ziga Kovac and Editor Morten B. Reitoft arrive at the company Chris Russel and quickly realize that the company operates with several names - to serve different markets. This film focuses on Fotofabriek.nl, which delivers photo-related products, as the name indicates. Fotofabriek produces over 6,000 products daily; most orders are shipped out the same day. On top of that, all productions are filmed so the customer can follow the production process - the users share these films and generate further interest for Fotofabriek.nl, which adds up to a total of more than 2 million videos a year. Can you imagine managing imposition, planning, binding, and logistics without software? Totally impossible, and that's where workflow/automation comes in place. All printing companies have workflow software, often delivered with your hardware. With Fotofabriek, this is the same, but a strategy of streamlining the workflow will minimize or even eliminate other workflow solutions and focus all into Impostrip/Bindery is what's in plan - and when we visit Fotofabriek.nl, we hear for the first time how the new scalable solution in Impostrip allow the company to scale processing power and nesting engines based on needs. This is SUPER cool and very valuable as Scalable allows any company to adjust to workload instantly! Here is also the link to the 'testimonial' we did for Ultimate TechnoGraphics, where Chris de Jonge explains how Ultimate TechnoGraphics is being used to solve all of the above challenges! Stephan de Vries https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephan-de-vries-52098142/ Chris De Jonge https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-de-jonge-b5b30a257/

CERM's booth at LabelExpo was busy. Not only with demos and meetings, but a considerable percentage of the booth was reserved for panel debates where attendees could listen to different customers' stories about CERM. Editor Morten B. Reitoft attended one with Marco Oude Nijeweme from the Dutch label printer Eshuis and got the chance to talk to him after the debate. In this session, the topic was planning. Nijeweme explained how CERM helps them optimize job planning and even how scheduled maintenance and rush jobs can add to the planning, which dynamically changes to realities and SLAs. Interesting story to learn from.

This is a VERY interesting film - full disclaimer - I love it. Karis Copp interviewed Jordy Silva de Jong in a recent interview done at FESPA - and we simply had to talk with him about their project SignAgain. Probo is a large reseller-only wide-format production company in the Netherlands, and as so many companies experience - they produce waste from the production. Still, they also deliver products that often end up in landfills or are burned. Probo has now turned waste into a viable recycling venture called SignAgain, which takes PVC waste and recycles this into new boards with many great properties - and in this film, you can hear and see all about it. And pay attention to the Wonderland event Jordy Silva de Jong speaks about initially.

Interket in Ommen, The Netherlands, is a label-printing company/converter that recently invested in LED-UV curing from IST. The advantages are many. No pre-warming before printing, a longer lifetime for the lamps, and considerably lower energy consumption. Production Manager Ronny Renker is happy and can't imagine investing in new machines that don't have LED-UVs. Great story about how better quality and better economics simultaneously go hand in hand with better environmental production!

The rebirth of Crown Van Gelder papers. After a few restless weeks, it is now officially a fact Crown Van Gelder is back in business! Today at 15:00, INKISH was invited to the Crown Van Gelder booth at the Hunkeler Innovationdays in Switzerland to hear and cover what went on at the Dutch Paper producer. It’s GOOD NEWS, so let’s find out together. Enjoy! LinkedIn Profile: Rodney Jansen

Featuring the Screen Truepress Jet520HD+, serving the commercial print markets. Truepress uses the new ink SC+ in the shown configuration to enable high-quality commercial printing on offset-coated papers. Also present is the “new to be” packaging-focused Truepress PAC 520P high-speed, water-based inkjet system for paper packaging substrates. It is located a bit more hidden in the back of the booth but was elegantly brought to our attention by Hiromi Kitagawa for us to see. It’s not out yet and still under development, but we got a chance to see it up close & personal, and now so do you. The Truepress PAC 520P is coming to fruition, and it uses Screen’s new Truepress ink NP, specialized pigment inks that comply with appropriate food-safety guidelines and regulations for paper packaging. The PAC 520P will be introduced to the market later this year.

In this interview with Taishi Motoshige, Marketing Director, Screen Europe, we understand the various versions of the highly popular Truepress Jet 520 and, of course, what to expect from Screen at Hunkeler Innovationdays!

Contiweb is one of the leading specialists in heavy un-winding and re-winding, and has for fifty years delivered solutions to web-offset and, with a declining market, over the past years, developed super smart solutions to the digital space. Besides the winding solutions, Contiweb has also developed coaters, moisturizers, etc. In this interview with Rob Bosman from Contiweb, you'll get a bit of history, a lot about the products, and of course, what to expect from Contiweb at the Hunkeler Innovationdays.

Imaging Solutions AG (ISAG) Are best known for their frames and lay-flat-photo books solutions, but the company also develops and sells other products. At C!Print '23, Imaging Solutions co-exhibited with Xpozer.com and showed a clever yet simple solution, together with a new alu/poly-based substrate, that can make stunning images printable, easy to send, and VERY easy to assemble. Two software solutions were also presented - by Imaging Solutions, as far as we see :-) The first is an extremely important software in the digital age, an AI-based image scaler that uses AI to render images to be used in a larger format - very convincing. The name of the software is Viesus. The other was equally interesting, though I found it strange that Imaging Solutions don't offer a demo- site to test the software's capabilities. The service is called MyPrint.ai, and what you do is upload min. 10 photos will then be made - again with the help of AI - into stunning images that can be used for your art. Everybody talks about AI, and with OpenAI's Dall-E2 and ChatGPT, MyPrint.ai is a welcome addition to the creative use of computers. Super nice to see! LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clvanos/

Niels Van Groenendaal explains in this film about MPS and how they set the course to be one of the most straightforward machines to operate. He also describes how a company like MPS needs partners to bring the best products to the market. Now MPS Systems is part of the EcoFlexo group. Each member remains an independent company but can offer end-to-end solutions by working together. EcoFlexo has the following members besides MPS - Hamillroad, GEW, COE, and Zeller + GMelin. We produced a film from each EcoFlexo member while in The Netherlands. Niels Van Groenendaal is no longer working for MPS Systems, but we agreed to push the film anyway! For further information, visit the EcoFlexo website: www.ecoflexo.net

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has been a buzzword for some time, but lately, one company, OpenAI, has made AI something everybody talks about. Erik Fieten does not only talk about AI but uses OpenAI's visual engine DALL·E to generate art for his wall art production business. In this interview with Editor Morten B. Reitoft, he explains "ART" and how DALL·E can create license-free art that can be used in his new online ventures. WallVis is an online art shop; how simple it may sound is unique. With DALL·E, Erik Fieten and his colleagues can create unique art, and it's merely impossible to create two of the same pieces - even when using the same words - but see and hear for yourself. New opportunity, and Erik Fieten is, as far as we know, a first-mover in this field. Great!

Kyocera is a well-known name in the graphics arts industry, yet was the introduction of a production cut-sheet inkjet printer a surprise to many. How long time does it take to get market acceptance? When will customers start to invest in technology from a "new" vendor? And what is the result of these investments? Many questions and one of the companies who took on the investment is the family-owned printing company Verloop Drukkerij. In this film, Operational Director Gertjan Kleinbloesem openly explains the considerations - and even more important how the TASKalfa fits into their operation. And he is positive. The TASKalfa delivers on both quality, consistency, service, and reliability the TASKalfa delivers. Enjoy the film!

FESPA is about large format, signage, textile, but, of course, the software is needed to drive the technology. PrintFactory used to be a wide-format printer and therefore knows what wide-format printers need. With that knowledge in mind, PrintFactory today delivers a suite of tools enabling lights-out production, better colors (consistent), and a RIP more suitable for all types of wide-format printing. In this interview, Director, Global Strategy Simon Landau from PrintFactory talked to INKISH BENELUX Jacques Michiels about why exhibiting at FESPA and what the latest and greatest is!