Epson sees huge potential in Indian market

Epson is a global innovation leader dedicated to exceeding expectations with solutions for markets as diverse as the office, home, commerce and industry. Epson?s lineup ranges from inkjet printers, printing systems and 3LCD projectors to industrial robots, smart glasses and sensing systems and is based on original compact, energy-saving, and high-precision technologies. Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, the Epson Group comprises more than 72,000 employees in 93 companies around the world.

Epson Europe B.V., based in Amsterdam, is the Group?s regional headquarters for Europe, Middle-East, Russia, and Africa. With a workforce of 1,700 employees, Epson Europe?s sales for fiscal year 2014 were 1,551 million. Epson Italy, national sales company, for fiscal year 2014 registered over 220 million Euros of sales with a workforce of about 165 employees.

In an exclusive email interaction with the Editor of The Indian Textile Journal, Paolo Crespi, Commercial Director at For.Tex, said: ?It is the common interest in the technology what brought Epson, For.Tex and F.lii Robustelli together. The union of Epson printing technology with For.Tex? expertise in the market of dyes and products for fabric pre and post treatment and F.lli Robustelli?s printers engineering capabilities have resulted in the creation of Monna Lisa, the first ever digital printer to allow a reliable industrial textile printing production.?

Monna Lisa created ripples of interest at the ITMA Milan in 2015. Said Crespi: ?Since the first unit in 2003, today there are more than 300 Monna Lisa located in Europe, Turkey, India, Brazil, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan, all still operating. Growing in all these countries and penetrating those market where the digital textile printing technique is at the beginning is a top priority. The Indian market, where the three companies plan to increase their market share, has proved a huge potential: over the last two/three years, India has shown the highest growth rate and in fact, the three companies have a direct presence for technical service and customer support. For the future, the three companies will concentrate in the developments of inks, with a wider colour extension and more effort in meeting the performance need required by the textile market, but also in Monna Lisa printing technology, increasing the productivity while maintaining the high quality and the effort to further reduce the environmental impact.?

Here are some of Epson?s major breakthrough in digital printing.

Epson Stylus Pro 4900 SpectroProofing Edition

With its 98 per cent PANTONE colours coverage, this 17-inch inkjet printer, offers excellent colour accuracy and exceptional functionality for remote proofing making it a valuable tool for digital designers. This production printer sets new standards in colour precision. It is targeted at the pre-printing, packaging, design, professional photography and fine art reproduction industry.

Its salient features are:

* Wide colour range: It easily provides uniform and precise samples, thanks to one of the market?s widest colour ranges. The printer is equipped with an Epson UltraChrome HDR 11-colour ink set and Thin Film Piezo (TFP) print heads.

* Accurate remote proofing: SpectroProofer is a printer line calibration tool. It ensures the same colour accuracy when using different materials, a rapid measurement of control strips and using third-party RIP, the International Colour Consortium (ICC) profile to create an excellent and precise colour accuracy.

* Greater productivity: 40 m²/hour production speed with minimum maintenance requirements. A high-capacity front-loading paper tray facilitates the paper insertion. No time is wasted switching between cut sheet and paper roll during automated paper changing. The printer switches automatically between already installed matte black and photo black inks depending on the material used.

* Extraordinary flexibility: Printing on a wide range of materials up to 1.5mm thick, including matte cardboard for photos or presentations, canvas and fine art paper.

* Energy efficiency: It features the ENERGY STAR certification which attests to consumption efficiency for a lower environmental impact.

Epson SureColor SC-S70600

This inkjet printer has an innovative application for the high fashion segment, particularly in the field of accessories and plastic-coated fabric printing for producing bags, shoes, and accessories in artificial leather with customised with the designer?s logo or graphics and drawings embellishments. Designed especially for posters, banners, backlit panels and POS materials production, Epson SureColor SC-S70600 is a printer for rolled material up to 64 inches wide. It is available in eight or ten colours.

The salient features are:

* Innovative inks use: In the 10-colour version, the printer uses white and metallic inks simultaneously.

* Maximum print quality: Using the Epson UltraChrome GSX and the Thin Film Piezo (TFP) print head together guarantees high precision ink drops positioning. Resolution up to 1440×1440 dpi provides outstanding print sharpness, precise details and smooth shading.

* High productivity: Up to 27.3 m2/h in an 8-colour high speed mode and up to 4.1 m2/h using metallic and white ink.

* Wide colour range: The GSX UltraChrome ink set includes, light magenta, light cyan, light black and orange in addition to the standard CMYK colours. The 10-colour version uses white and metallic inks, for a higher versatility. Thanks to light inks, both models produce perfectly homogeneous shades and gradations. The light black ink improves neutral grayscale quality even more. The advanced ink formulation ensures long-lasting prints that resist light in the outdoors for three years without needing lamination.

* Ergonomic design: It minimizes time and waste of consumables.

* Reduced environmental impact: Epson UltraChrome GSX inks are odourless and nickel-free. They are high energy efficient, ENERGY STAR certified, which further reduces operating costs and the printer environmental footprint.