Largest Ever Inkjet Summit Conference Kicked Off April 24 in Texas

Last year, Barb Pellow (far left) led an opening keynote panel featuring (from the left) Adam Avrick, Design Distributors, Don Maden, Southeastern Printing; Cheryl Kahanec, Quantum Group; and Jeff Matos Broadridge.

More than 300 attendees — including over 135 executives from commercial printing, book manufacturing, direct mail, transactional, and in-plant printing operations — will converge at the Hyatt Lost Pines resort outside of Austin, Texas, for the 11th annual Inkjet Summit on Monday, marking the largest event yet. There will also be representatives from 57 Inkjet Summit sponsor companies, including the four Keynote-level sponsors: Canon Solutions America, HP, Ricoh, and SCREEN Americas.

Organized by Printing Impressions' parent organization, PRINTING United Alliance, this year's Inkjet Summit will kick off with a keynote by conference chair Marco Boer, VP of IT Strategies. Titled "The Transition From Offset to Inkjet Pages Has Begun." Boer will make a case that this year's Inkjet Summit marks the point in time in the printing industry where production inkjet page production starts to truly replace offset printing output.

Industry analyst Marco Boer will once again serve as the conference chair.

"For many years IT Strategies posited that the beginning of the tipping point from offset to digitally printed pages would begin in 2026, a date connected to a demographic cliff in the labor force," Boer explains. "We were wrong — the supply chain disruptions triggered by the COVID pandemic have accelerated our projection of the beginning of a tipping point from 2026 to right now. Rising paper costs have made print buyers averse to waste, resulting in micro-run lengths and just-in-time customer requirements. During COVID, production inkjet technology advanced with ever broader substrate support and, most importantly, the productivity to replace offset presses," he contends.

Following Boer's presentation, Barb Pellow, of industry consultancy Pellow & Partners, will lead a keynote panel discussion featuring Tom Boyle, executive VP of sales and marketing, Heeter; Jared Carr, director of operations, Toppan Merrill; Eric Kahn, executive chairman, Graphic Village; and Rick Neumann, VP of operations, IWCO.

The formal program for the evening kickoff will end with a "Truth from the Trenches" panel discussion of current cut-sheet and continuous-feed production inkjet users led by Mark Michelson, editor-in-chief of Printing Impressions. Panelists will include Adam LeFebvre, president, Specialty Print Communications (SPC); Steven Lewis, director of the Printing Div. at The Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-day Saints; and Jennifer Pettinger, CEO, Sun Print Solutions.

Inkjet Summit Format: A Proven Model

For three days (April 24-26), printing company owners and senior-level managers will mingle with their industry peers, sharing real-life experiences and enjoying a nonstop program of keynotes, user panel discussions, and expert consultant presentations. They will also have the opportunity to meet — both formally during scheduled meetings and informally, with the 57 sponsoring companies, which represent all of the leading suppliers of production inkjet printing presses and finishing equipment, paper and other consumables suppliers, and VDP and workflow software providers. Sponsors will also present boardroom-style case studies featuring successful inkjet implementations, many including presentations and commentary from the print providers themselves where the installations took place.

In 2022, Mark Michelson (far left) also led an inkjet user panel that included, from the left, Eric Kahn, Graphic Village; Perry Klein, Mittera; Nick Larsen, Quantum Graphics; and Kirk Schlecker, Heeter.

On the final day, Michelson will also lead a commercial printing breakout panel discussion featuring four current inkjet users. They will include David Harding, chairman and CEO, HardingPoorman; Michael Jenoski, CEO, Goodway Group of Massachusetts; Eric Kahn, executive chairman, Graphic Village; and Mark Popp, VP of technology and R&D, The Imagine Group.

These leading print providers represent just a small sampling of the attendees at the invitation-only event. Other companies represented will include Design Distributors, NPC Inc., ICS Corp., Grandville Printing, Freedom, Content Critical Solutions, Alcom, Phoenix Innovate, Sandy Alexander, United Mail, Pel Hughes Printing, Bridgeport National Bindery, Alliance Franchise Brands, O'Neil Data Systems, Broadridge, Strategic Factory, Bolger, KP LLC, Vistaprint, The YGS Group, SG360°, Hederman Brothers, LSC Communications, Thomson Reuters,  Drummond, Wallace Graphics, Cenveo, The John Roberts Co., and many more.

For three days starting Monday, the Hyatt Lost Pines outside of Austin, Texas, will truly be the center of the universe for technology education, open information sharing, and networking about all aspects of production inkjet printing.