Ricoh Europe and Durst have extended their printhead technology partnership with a €50million collaboration deal.
A manufacturer of advanced digital printing and production technologies, Durst already uses Ricoh Gen 5 inkjet printheads in its Alpha textile printing systems and the Durst P5 series for large format printing.
As part of this new deal, Ricoh printheads will be further developed for upcoming Durst printing systems for their various fields of application.
Specifically, the technical expertise and teams of both Ricoh and Durst will collaborate on new solutions, developing printheads as well as printers, to open up the potential for inkjet technology to address the needs of emerging applications.
New ways to use inkjet technologies and materials for enhanced sustainability – for example lower drying energy consumption – are already being explored. Further collaborative initiatives will be revealed in the coming months.
Ricoh industrial print business global general manager Dr. Christian Compera said the partnership will allow the business to develop its printheads in a more focused way with real-world requirements.
“Often there can be a high level of protectiveness surrounding printhead intellectual property, materials and printhead production technologies as well as ink formulations. By bringing together the Ricoh and Durst development teams, we share the goal of continuously improving the entire printing system, which ultimately benefits customers,” Dr. Compera said.
Durst CEO and co-owner Christoph Gamper said the deal reaffirms and continues a collaborative approach with Ricoh as both companies share a commitment to delivering long-life performance.
“Extending our partnership with Ricoh enables us to achieve a faster time-to-market for new printing systems, as we work together on the perfect interaction of printheads inks and substrates,” Gamper said.
“Not only does this allow us to achieve maximum print quality and performance but also to guarantee reliability for extended printer life. It gives our customers a clear basis for their investment decisions, without the risk factor of the printhead.”
Durst Oceania managing director Matt Ashman added, “It’s great to see the continued partnership of Durst and Ricoh. As companies, we are both motivated to provide the best solutions for our customers and to achieve new and greater milestones and innovation.”
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