The company’s president Minoru Usui predicted the potential of micro piezo when working as an engineer at the company in the 1980s, and persuaded then-Epson bosses to commercialise the technology.

"Our strategic goals are to double revenues in large-format and quadruple revenues in industrial printing," Usui stated, as the company announced a host of new developments ahead of Drupa.

"Micro-piezo has the potential to print extremely large media, and extremely fast. There are almost no restrictions on what it can do," he told PrintWeek.  "We are fully capable of being the price and quality leader."

This week Epson announced it had taken a 50% stake in Italian company For.Tex, which produces specialist inks and chemicals for textile printing.

The two companies have already worked together on the Monna Lisa digital textile printer jointly-developed by Epson and Robustelli of Italy.

Epson also announced that it sold 300 of its new SureColor SC–S30600 wide-format printer at last week’s Fespa Digital show, and Epson ProGraphics director Duncan Ferguson hailed the €13,995 (£11,800) device as having "the lowest price and lowest energy consumption of any printer in its class".

He described the feedback at Fespa Digital as "overwhelmingly positive".

Looking ahead to Drupa, Epson will show a technology demonstration of a new version of its SurePress digital label printer. The SurePress X incorporates Epson’s new TFP (Thin Film Piezo) printheads, has a white ink option and is also Epson’s first UV ink product.

An early glimpse of the SurePress X shows that it has an extremely compact footprint. Further specifications including width and print speed are being kept under wraps until May.

Epson is also taking its technology into the commercial photo printing market with a new digital dry lab, the SureLab SL-D3000. The 1,440dpi six-colour device can produce up to 650 standard size photo prints an hour. It has a print width of 305mm and Epson anticipates it will also be used for products such as greetings cards and flyers. Pricing is expected to be sub-€40,000 (£33,735).