Colin Flinn · Business Development Manager · Horizon USA

At PRINTING United 2026 in Las Vegas, Morten B. Reitoft meets longtime friend Colin Flinn from Horizon for a preview of something considerably bigger than the booth in Las Vegas — Horizon Smart Factory 2026 in Japan.

Colin was already involved when Horizon presented its first Smart Factory concept in 2019. At the time, much of the conversation around connected production, robotics and lights-out finishing was still a vision of where the printing industry could eventually go.

Seven years later, much of that future has arrived.

Customers are no longer looking simply for a binder, a folder, or a printing press. Increasingly, they need complete production environments connecting MIS, workflow, printing, finishing, quality control, packaging and logistics — with as little manual intervention as possible.

And automation has moved from primarily reducing costs to becoming a necessity as printers struggle to recruit and retain skilled production staff.

At Horizon Smart Factory 2026, visitors will see more than 16 printing presses and over 20 technology partners working together across complete end-to-end production environments. Offset, digital print, finishing, software, AMRs, robotic palletizing, and other automation technologies will demonstrate what a genuinely connected factory can look like.

Software is naturally becoming increasingly important.

Horizon’s iCE LiNK platform has evolved significantly since its introduction and is now central to connecting production equipment, collecting data, tracking jobs and coordinating increasingly automated finishing environments. As Colin puts it, communication is just as important in a factory as in any organization — all the different components need to speak the same language.

Robotics is another important part of that journey. Horizon continues to develop AMRs for moving work between production processes, robotic palletizing, and other technologies designed to remove repetitive manual handling while remaining straightforward for operators to use.

But Smart Factory 2026 isn’t only about demonstrating what Horizon can deliver today.

The company is already looking five, ten and fifteen years ahead, asking what print production will require next and how Horizon’s manufacturing, software and automation capabilities can support that future.

And according to Colin, there may also be a few surprises waiting in Japan.

Watch Morten B. Reitoft’s conversation with Colin Flinn from Horizon at PRINTING United 2026 — and get ready for Horizon Smart Factory 2026.