Epson never does things by halves. In a stellar launch event at its new Yennora, NSW demo and distribution centre, the global President, Mr Yasunori Ogawa, who took over from Mr Usui (now Chairman) in April; addressed delegates via video call during the launch of new products for high volume dye-sublimation, a new resin 'latex-type' roll printer and Epson's first true flatbed UV printer. Also previewed was a new industrial-level DTG printer with dual printheads.
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| From the opening ceremony at today's Epson launch in Sydney |
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| EPSON Global President Yasunori Ogawa joined the event online due to Covid travel restrictions |
In answering questions from the Australian trade media, Mr Ogawa said:
"The A/NZ market and indeed the Oceania market is incredibly important to Epson. They are both advanced and sophisticated which makes both Australia and New Zealand ideal for helping us understand what customers want from our products and getting feedback on how we can improve them.
"Our customers in Oceania are always very vocal about expressing their opinions to us. For us, it’s all about working with our customers to solve real issues faced by the industry. So, although these direct opinions are not always what we want to hear, my big request is that they keep on telling us exactly what they think about how we can keep on improving and better work together. This makes us as a company and our products better."
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| Epson's first 76"(193cm) industrial dye-sub |
He continued: " We believe there’s a lot of scope for expanding digital technologies in signage, textile and label printing. In fact, we think these are hugely important for our future growth in industrial and commercial printing. As a result, we are making major inroads and advances in these areas. In label printing we’re aiming to replace traditional analogue processes by introducing high performance models that will greatly increase productivity."
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| Epson PrecisionCore 4.7" TFP |
On Epson's new PrecisionCore printhead technology, he said: "Our PrecisionCore printheads allow us to fire precise amounts of ink, and because they don’t use heat, are extremely durable and can be used with a wide variety of inks. Going forward, we’d like to take advantage of this versatility. Through open innovation, we’d like to expand applications for our technology in areas like manufacturing and regenerative medicine by printing with substances such as metals and human cells."
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| Epson's new DTG printer, SC-F3060: a T-Shirt every minute |
Mr Ogawa identified growth areas for Epson: "I expect label, textiles and signage printing to all experience significant growth going forward. In signage we aim to dramatically expand applications by launching new products with resin and UV inks. We’ll also seek to expand applications by increasing convenience through measures such as providing cloud solutions with functions to help monitor operations."
On the challenges presented by Covid, he said: "Covid-19 is impacting almost every market by making workflows more challenging and thus requiring clever, efficient and innovative solutions to overcome those challenges.
"We are seeing big demand in these markets in both developed and developing economies, and we still think there’s a lot of room for growth. I expect increased demand for LFPs because a lot of firms will look to disperse their operations to help reduce overall risk. Epson tries wherever possible to help our customers overcome challenges associated with Covid by offering not just hardware, but software solutions to allow efficient management of distributed printing operations."
He concluded: "The world has changed a lot recently and I think that technology will play a major role in taking us where we want to go. Our aim is to make the world a better place by focusing on solving issues with our original efficient, compact and precision technologies, by reducing the environmental burden of our products over their life cycle, and by contributing to achieving the SDGs."
On September 23rd, Wideformatonline reported on the European launch of the new flatbed UV and resin printers here
More on Epson's new UV, resin/latex, DTG and dye-sub releases in next Tuesday's newsletter.
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| All eyes were on Epson's first 'latex-like' resin printer the 64" SureColor R5000, at under AUD$50,000 - up to 116.5 m2/hr |
