It's a complicated market. There's a need for both dye and pigment inks and increasingly a need for one paper to work with all the different inkjet printing machines. The challenge of creating a portfolio that works on all machines and in all market segments is getting bigger and bigger.
Sublimation paper is totally different to book paper and to DM paper - the weights, quality requirements and shades are so different. We try to offer a lean development process involving the OEM that builds the machine, the ink manufacturers, and those in the different market segments, such as publishers and printers.
Finishing is another element, because parallel with inkjet you have the integration of print and finishing. If you are going straight into a finishing line at high speed it is very complicated and it makes paper even more important. You cannot just say, let's make a 180 gsm paper; the calliper and shade of the paper is crucial, the run-ability is crucial. We have all been focusing on the look of the paper, does it look like offset; now it is, is this suitable for book printing?
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Quality-wise, we have a range of seven papers and next to the silk range we have created a bright silk with the same feel. Gloss papers are very expensive - almost impossible to produce at the price that the market will pay. It's not possible for us to copy that for the inkjet market just yet.
The challenges we are addressing at the moment are:
1: Making papers that perform at the price the market expects
2: Proving ROI
3. Drying paper at high speed and going direct to finishing
4: Globalization - we sell all over the world and distribution is difficult; sublimation you can predict; less so with publishing and DM is not predictable at all.
In the future, we will be going to lighter and heavier papers. We need a certain volume to be cost efficient as a mill but the market is shouting for these solutions.
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