Decorative

The shift from analog to digital printing is transforming how the decorative industry produces wallpaper, tiles, laminates, flooring, and other surfaces. By printing directly onto the material with inkjet technology, manufacturers can simplify their production lines, cut down on waste, and move towards more sustainable processes.

Digital inkjet also makes small, customized batches economically viable. This means:

• Flexible, on-demand patterns
• Less inventory sitting in storage
• Much faster design changes and updates

By offering tools to evaluate, fine-tune, and validate inkjet printing in R&D, we help decorative manufacturers confidently adopt and scale this technology in their production environments.

Direct to Shape

Mass customization

Digital direct-to-shape printing makes it cost-effective to print anything from a single container to large volumes. Brands can easily localize, personalize, and customize designs for promotions, limited editions, or test runs, and quickly adjust production to match changing consumer demand.

Efficient production

Preparation is quick, and designs can be switched almost instantly, even for very small batches. This lets the line handle everything from single pieces to long runs with high flexibility and short delivery times. Direct-to-shape printing also combines decoration and functional information in one pass, so barcodes, best-before dates, and other variable details are applied straight onto the container.

Environmental benefits

Because the print goes directly onto the container, there is no need for labels, liners, or extra adhesives, reducing waste and material usage. The non-contact process also supports the use of thinner-wall PET. Printing only the exact number of decorated containers needed helps keep unnecessary materials out of landfills and recycling streams.

Coating & Adhesives​​​

For makers of pretreatments, coatings, and adhesives, the hardest part is proving how their materials behave in real inkjet conditions. With so many different inks, substrates, and printers, it’s difficult to predict performance without proper in-house testing.

Instead of sending samples to customers and waiting for slow feedback, more companies are installing their own inkjet test systems. With a dedicated print station using the same printheads and inks as their customers, they can evaluate compatibility upfront, see exactly how their materials react, and solve problems early. This leads to faster time to market, higher customer confidence, and smoother technical support.

Bio Medical

The biomedical printing and dispensing field is pushing towards smaller, denser arrays for things like microneedle patches, microwell plates, and synthetic biology. Drop-in-flight analysis tools help developers tune both fluid formulations and dispensing parameters so that each drop has the right volume and lands exactly where it should.

Common Challenge: Error Detection

Materials used for printed pills, beads, and biological fluids are very costly, so every failed part is expensive. Inline measurement systems can detect problems while production is running, letting you correct issues immediately and save material. In addition to monitoring drops in flight to spot inconsistencies, post-dispense inspection can confirm that wells are properly filled, printed features are the correct size, and no debris or defects are present.

Packaging

Inkjet printing is a perfect fit for packaging because it gives brands speed, flexibility, and customization in a single technology. Instead of making plates or cylinders for every design, artwork is sent digitally to the printer, so changes to language, branding, promotions, or regulations can be made at any time without extra tooling cost. This makes short runs, seasonal designs, and market-specific versions economically realistic, while still supporting high-volume production. 

On the same line, variable data such as barcodes, lot numbers, expiry dates, and personalized messages can be printed directly on the pack, removing separate coding steps. Because you only print what you need, when you need it, inkjet also helps reduce waste and inventory, making packaging production more responsive and more sustainable.

Security Printing 

Inkjet is a strong choice for security printing because it can add unique, hard-to-copy details to every single item. 

Instead of one fixed plate, the design is digital, so serial numbers, QR codes, barcodes, and personalized IDs can all be changed from piece to piece with no extra setup. High-resolution inkjet can print microtext, fine lines, and complex patterns that are difficult to reproduce with simple copying or scanning.

Different inks – UV-visible, infrared, color-shifting or invisible tagging inks – can be jetted in precise locations as overt or covert security features. Because everything is driven by data, security elements can also be linked directly to databases and tracking systems, giving both brand owners and authorities better tools to verify, trace, and protect documents, labels, and products.

Printed Electronics

Inkjet-printed electronics is a rapidly growing approach for making devices such as flexible circuits, wearables, sensors, solar cells, and display components like OLED panels.

 Compared with traditional, mask-based contact processes, it brings several key advantages:

Lower cost for development and small runs
Patterns are created digitally and deposited only where needed, so prototypes and short production runs require no masks and generate very little scrap, which cuts overall manufacturing costs.

Scalable to very large areas
Because the image is built up by scanning or moving the substrate, the printable area is not fundamentally limited by a fixed mask size. This makes it suitable for large-format electronics, including big-area displays.

Non-contact and substrate-friendly
The printhead never touches the surface, so a wider variety of materials and 3D shapes can be used with reduced risk of mechanical damage or contamination—ideal for delicate films, flexible substrates, and complex geometries.

In additive manufacturing with binder jetting, inkjet printheads selectively jet a glue-like binder onto a thin powder layer; new layers of powder are added and printed, so the part is built up layer by layer. 

Inkjet is a great fit here because it’s a proven, precise, and flexible technology: developers can choose from different binder chemistries (aqueous, solvent, UV-curable) and still achieve micron-level control of drop size and placement. The process scales well from small to large build areas, and since many materials can be supplied as powders—metals, sand, ceramics, and composites—it supports a wide range of applications with competitive production costs.

Robotics

In robotics, inkjet printing is emerging as a powerful way to build and integrate flexible electronics, sensors, and soft actuators directly onto or inside robotic structures. Instead of relying only on rigid PCBs and complex assembly, functional inks can be jetted onto flexible films or 3D parts to create strain sensors, conductive tracks, and even soft pneumatic or electrostatic actuators that move the robot

Because the process is fully digital, designs can be changed quickly, customized for different robot shapes, and produced in small batches without masks or tooling. At the same time, inkjet offers the fine resolution needed for dense wiring and miniaturized components, which is essential for soft and wearable robots that need lightweight, conformable electronics closely integrated with their mechanical bodies.