What do you feel were the main trends and key industry developments in 2022?
This has been a year of momentum and recovery in digital print, especially in display graphics. The return of live entertainment and sporting events, conferences and tradeshows had a direct impact on the display graphics market. That resurgence – and the continued progress we continue to see with industrial markets like textile and corrugated transitioning toward inkjet – make this an exciting time to be in digital print.

All this growth is part of an ongoing trend in the analogue-to-digital transformation. That is a key focus for our customers’ future success. But there are other key trends shaping the industry. Sustainability, for example, is an important purchasing criteria for customers looking at new equipment. Printweek recently covered what appears to be a critical initiative to implement Demand Flexibility Services to better manage energy consumption and preserve England’s power grid. Print businesses have to rethink how they use energy, and as your coverage points out, energy used in drying is one of the challenges they face. It is something that makes UV LED curing more important than ever given the energy usage savings it brings compared with latex and traditional UV inkjet curing.

And that is just one aspect of making print more sustainable. It is increasingly important to consider the recyclability of digitally printed materials and compatibility with recycled media, and to continue driving out sources of waste. Digital printing solutions continue to advance in ways that can greatly reduce media waste for instance. For example, our award-winning Fiery Prep-it software gives customers a minimum of 10% in media savings by providing better true-shape nesting compared with other products available in the industry.

And, in general, there is an important movement toward even more efficiency in print, with solutions in automation, cloud software, and artificial intelligence. They are all drivers for innovations featured in our latest printers and Fiery workflow products because we see the real-world scenarios in how those technologies can make our customers more profitable even in a highly competitive market.

How have the numerous economic, political, and supply chain challenges that have dominated 2022 affected you and your customers, and how have you had to react?
EFI dedicated resources to solve supply chain issues creatively and source critical components to ramp up production and meet growing demand. And we expanded manufacturing capabilities, including those at our UK ink facility to match those here in the US, improving our ability to supply ink to the UK and greater European markets.

For our customers, finding material for sign and display graphics printing was one of the most difficult supply chain challenges they faced. In some cases, when materials did arrive, they were less than perfect. But rejecting material is no longer an option with shortages and long lead times. Aside from connecting customers with key industry media suppliers to discuss sourcing materials, order volumes, managing inventory levels and alternative materials, EFI also tackled the issue of printing on those unperfect materials. For example, our Vutek h Series printers feature a new media management system that includes a new vacuum table with increased hold down, new material edge guides and media rollers.

And with the rising costs of everything, EFI continues to innovate technology that lowers the overall cost to manufacture print – everything from energy-saving LED, automation and workflow efficiencies to production intelligence – so our customers can be more profitable.

How have your relationships with customers and their expectations from you as a supplier changed in the past 12 months?
Our customers want us to continue to drive innovation and solve the challenges they face. The nature of the challenges our customers face changes over time, but our ability to remain fully customer-focused does not. We are constantly innovating the things our customers say they need most. Any good printing technology provider needs to be able to take a position as a growth partner to its customers, and I think that is something EFI has done, and will continue to do, extraordinarily well.

What do you expect to be the main trends, key industry developments, and biggest opportunities for printers in 2023?
New levels of automation, speed, and efficiency will lead some customers to redefine their market opportunities and drive new business. This is particularly important in high-volume work, and we have built out a world-class portfolio of super high speed solutions.

If you want to look at where the future could be headed, look at places like Delta Group in the UK, which is one of the few companies in the world to have a single-pass press dedicated to display graphics signage. Delta is the first company in Europe to install our Nozomi 18000+ LED press for display graphics, and they are doing work at and above the rated speeds of 1,000 boards per hour. Delta is running it alongside a second single-pass press from us, the Nozomi C18000 Plus for corrugated board, and they are getting next-level productivity in the display space using two single-pass machines that deliver high quality in volumes that outpace everyone else. Those two devices have the capacity of many smaller presses. More and more companies in the market will see ways to transform their business with our Super High Speeds solutions, a means to deliver high quality with less labour, faster turnaround times, and outstanding versatility.

In terms of growth opportunities, after significant lows during the pandemic, soft signage demand is coming back in a big way. EFI’s new Vutek FabriVU 340i+ dye-sublimation printer now offers more capabilities and inline fixation that allows you to direct print to fabric and sublimate inline, in one step. So, you don’t have to invest in a heat press to get into this booming market with key applications for tradeshows, events and exhibition graphics, as well as retail POP.

Note: This prediction is taken from a special Briefing article in the new issue of Printweek featuring insights from industry suppliers, hence it does not follow the same question template as the other predictions.