Over 400 participants are expected to attend The Inkjet Conference (IJC) 2015 in Dusseldorf, Germany. Developed in partnership with drupa, organized by ESMA and offering a two-track program of over 50 technical presentations, the event takes place on October 7-8.

“The narrow web sector has witnessed recent important players challenging the market with new digital solutions,” says Peter Buttiens, CEO of ESMA. “The movement towards digital starts to include traditional brands, as well, which only shows how mature the digital inkjet technology has grown in the last couple of years.”

The event will highlight the evolving technology and its effects on the label and packaging market. Innovations include “re-circulating ink systems” and “Small multi-level drops.” Along with increased nozzle density and ink improvements, there have been developments in reliable high speed, high resolution, single pass digital label presses. The first generation of machines satisfied the market’s demand for flexibility, and the second followed with improvements in image quality.

“Each successive generation of machines shows higher performance and more integration to a digital workflow,” explains Steve Knight, CEO of Digital Direct Technologies and co-founder of TheIJC. “Now we are starting to see direct to object printing which – when fully implemented – will revolutionize the production process. Thankfully it is not just labels and packaging that are fuelling the core technology. Inkjet has already proven itself in large scale industrial applications and is widely used in the production of ceramic tiles, textiles, display graphics, newspapers or transactional mailing.”

The Inkjet Conference focuses on all aspects of inkjet engineering and inkjet chemistry. The invited speakers will present the progress in printheads, inks, software, electronics, chemistry and integration knowhow – all which continue to drive today’s and future trends, ultimately leading to a digital production process that chal¬lenges conventional product marketing.

“As technology enables a new print process, we see different challenges face the printer,” adds Knight. “The business of tomor¬row will not look like the business of today. The business of tomorrow will be more IT centric, with database management and workflow automation at its core and with inkjet printing being part of an automated manufacturing process. For those willing to take advantage of the opportunities offered by inkjet, there is a bright future.”