Domino Printing Sciences, a global provider in digital printing coding and marking, has made significant investments in its digital printing solutions division as part of a commitment to broadening its range of solutions and services for the labels and corrugated packaging sectors. Domino has created a training center close to its Cambridgeshire (UK) headquarters to provide courses and resources for its service engineers located across the world.
The new center is the latest in a line of recent developments in Domino’s digital printing solutions division, following the formation of Domino’s digital solutions program, dedicated to helping label and packaging manufacturers manage their transition to digital production and optimize workflows to maximize their digital investment.
Domino’s newly opened training center comprises three fully equipped professional laboratories containing the latest digital printing technology to deliver a combination of theoretical and practical training, as well as classrooms and a lab equipped for advanced development work.
Domino engineers attend in-depth, three-week courses to learn about installing and servicing the company’s latest technologies. This includes the K600i mono print bar technology, full-color inkjet including the N610i and N730i presses, and the new N610i-R digital retrofit module, designed to help converters add digital printing technology into existing flexographic lines. The company plans to further expand the portfolio in due course.
Julie Cross, technical director for digital printing at Domino, said “The creation of this center has enabled us to offer our engineers technical training in a professional setting so they can return to their regions fully equipped to deliver outstanding service to customers. We will broaden the training courses on offer, as well as use the labs for further development work on digital printing product improvements and new applications in the future.”
This investment helps to complement Domino’s digital solutions program, which aims to help customers make the most out of their digital printing investment, with support from a specialist team of digital printing experts whose sole role is to advise and guide customers on their digital journey. From business analysis, estimating, workflow optimization, and application development, the program is designed to facilitate the creation of a business environment for increased opportunities, both in the near- and long-term.
“Digital printing is a huge opportunity for label and packaging manufacturers – but we understand that the prospect of transitioning to a new technology can be quite scary, and the process can be challenging if you don’t have the right support,” says Andrew Murden, global after-sales manager at Domino. “That’s why we have established the digital solutions program, to bring together industry experts with decades of experience to help ease this transition and support our customers to achieve their strategic business goals – ensuring that any investment in digital develops into the opportunity that it should be.”
The launch of Domino’s new training center follows the recent announcement of Domino’s £6.6 million investment at the company’s inks manufacturing plant in Liverpool, which will go live early in 2024, boosting its digital printing inks manufacturing capacity. The upgrade to its existing 16,000m2 Liverpool facility will see Domino become one of the very few digital printing suppliers to have full end-to-end control of the digital printing process – encompassing design and manufacture of digital printing presses, printheads, and UV digital printing inks – to ensure overall print quality for the customer.
Part of the investment has enabled the installation of a new fully automated production line to manage materials handling, formulation, processing, filling, inspection, and packaging of Domino’s high-volume UV inks, using vision and robot technology to ensure finished product quality.
This comes hot on the heels of the opening of Domino’s European Digital Centre of Excellence in Nieuwegein in the Netherlands, in 2022. The CoE is a dedicated space for European customers and distributors to see tailored demonstrations and get hands-on experience with the company’s entire portfolio of digital color labels and corrugated presses.
Technology has also been installed to enable a series of Spectrum Events to be streamed, focusing on specific aspects of the technology to engineers and customers across the globe. This builds on a successful formula established in the USA, where printing companies, industry experts, and technology vendors come together to identify best practice approaches that support productivity and business growth.
David Ellen, divisional director – digital printing at Domino, said “Domino is committed to providing innovative solutions that drive success in the digital era, and as such, we are delighted to announce our recent investments. These developments will help us to ensure that we can deliver a consistent, high-quality output to satisfy the demands of our customers so that they can, in turn, elevate their products and exceed their customer expectations.”
