Research Study Reveals New Findings About Production Inkjet Printing Adoption

There's no denying that production inkjet printing technology has taken the industry by storm, with events dedicated to the technology, such as the annual Inkjet Summit, as well as educational sessions and webinars. On Jan. 16, Printing Impressions, along with its sister publication In-plant Graphics, hosted a webinar focused on production inkjet adoption, deployment and end results.

The webinar, "Production Inkjet: Anatomy of the Adoption Process – Key Challenges and Benefits," which was sponsored by the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA), was based on a comprehensive research study commissioned by SGIA and conducted by NAPCO Research. Nathan Safran, director of research at NAPCO Media, led the discussion with findings from a survey that comprised more than 700 respondents at commercial and in-plant printing operations, who are interested in purchasing or have already purchased either continuous-feed inkjet and/or cut-sheet inkjet (but not wide-format) presses. Safran was joined by Bob Neubauer, editor-in-chief of In-plant Graphics, and Mark Michelson, editor-in-chief of Printing Impressions, who rounded out the discussion and provided their perspectives from years of covering the commercial and in-plant industries.

"The goal of the study was to provide a holistic look at the production inkjet research, adoption and deployment process," Safran told webinar attendees.

Safran began by outlining the four pillars of the study: ownership, pre-purchase, post-purchase and impact. Each of the four sections of the study revealed various trends and characteristics from each industry segment.

Ownership of Production Inkjet

The ownership segment of the research study covered production inkjet from the perspective of ownership rates, the likelihood of respondents to buy the technology, the amount of time current users have been running production inkjet equipment and their overall satisfaction. One of the key aspects that Safran presented was that 40% of respondents surveyed said they were somewhat or very likely to buy inkjet within the next year.

The Pre-Purchase Process

This segment of the research focused on the drivers pushing the technology, the OEMs that respondents considered during their search, the amount and type of due diligence paid to the search, and the time it took to purchase. Michelson pointed out that it was somewhat surprising to him that the largest percentage of respondents picked quality as the top driving factor behind embracing the technology. According to the survey respondents, the top three pre-purchase activities showcasing their average due diligence, included attending industry events (60%), cost of ownership (54%) and turning to consultants and/or industry peers (39%).

Post-Purchase Review

Next up was the post-purchase review, which took a look at respondents' ROI calculations, their experience deploying the new technology, deployment challenges and the overall technology/workflow. One of the most surprising results, Safran said, was that 9% of respondents revealed that they did not perform an ROI analysis during the pre-purchase stage. Another aspect of the study revealed that one of the biggest challenges production inkjet adopters faced was paper compatibility. Neubauer stressed the importance of allotting enough time to paper testing to alleviate this challenge. He noted how one current inkjet user recommended running at least 50,000 impressions during testing to get a clearer picture of how each stock will perform during long runs

The Big Impact

The final segment focused on the impact production inkjet can make on a business, including its benefits, legacy work migrated, new business and new applications deployed. The top three benefits reported by survey respondents were that they were able to generate new business (49%), and that they experienced reduced per job costs (40%) and higher press speeds (40%).

Click here to watch the full webinar discussing the results on-demand or click here to download the full report. There are also many other educational sessions that you can access for free on our webinar page.