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design

Printodeco video is up

Since November the 14th, the video of Printodeco is available at YouTube. The collaboration of all partners, and especially through the effort of Torculo and Seistag, made possible the video.

The video was recorded in summer 2018. It demonstrates the achievements of the Partnership of Printodeco Project. This is a collaborative project among four Spanish Companies. The project focused on reducing time to market of design products enabling enhanced possibilities for customization to the customers.

The video shows the way in which a designer can define a decorative pattern and, in just 48 hours, that design becomes a piece of furniture. This is possible thanks to the collaboration of technicians, printers, board makers and furniture makers. In order to make it happen, different resources are needed:

One of the tools is the catalog of ready to print designs. It is a printed booklet, but also a website which enables changing many parameters to the default images. By means of this, the customization possibilities are countless and the designer is not forced to start from scratch.

A second tool is a workflow, which compromises the whole Consortium. It ensures the quality of the images and also of the printing process. Special inks and papers are used and everything is done under special codes to ensure that the paper will fit the boards.

Thanks to the above-mentioned tools, making melamine boards and furniture with the printed paper is a standard process with no extra costs. Thanks to this, the offer of Printodeco can be cost-effective and therefore competitive in a huge market.

Proofing

Printing paper to be used within the industry of melamine boards means large-scale production.

Melamine market is a huge market. The average production is around 3 million square meters per month. Printing such a huge volume is something that ought to be developed within an industrial environment. Therefore, the impact of innovation in this field is very relevant. Nevertheless, there are issues related to this large-scale production, which represent an added difficulty. The printer ought to work nonstop, but at the same time the quality control needs measurements and new design should enter into production every day. Interrupting the production for any of those reasons would be very expensive. Because of this, proofing is needed to control the quality of the color.

SEISTAG designed the proofing technology for PRINTODECO Project. The technological Company proposed a technical solution similar to the one used for large-scale offset production, but this time used not to control an analogical printing device, but a large-scale digital printer. Proofing means printing trials in a small printer in order to keep the big one running nonstop and error free. It is very usual for large-scale production. It is also typical when color is an important element in the image.

Proofing needs profiling the industrial printing device. This is done in three steps. The first step is to measure the real color produced by the printer. Then to compare it with the theoretical color of the original image. Finally, establishing a mathematical relationship between the coordinates of the color to be printed and the coordinates of the printed color. A line describes that relation, and that is the reason why it is called profile. Moreover, as there are four channels of color (Cian, Magenta, Yellow, and Black), four profiles are needed.

Once the industrial partner has been described by means of its profiles, it is possible to print at lab scale as if it were the industrial printer. Note that the lab scale printer should be able to reproduce more colors than the industrial printer. Otherwise, the lab-scale printer would not be able to reproduce the results of the industrial device: a high-quality printer at the laboratory is necessary. Luckily TORCULO owns a machine that suits this need. This enabled proofing during the PRINTODECO Project, which was a technical process to ensure quality steered by SEISTAG within PRINTDECO Project.

COSME’S February 2018 networking day!

This April saw us celebrating two years of fun-filled, design-based COSME projects, a festive follow up to last year’s COSME Networking Day in October 2017 where the COSME community met last. Last month, the major policy event ‘EU Industry Days’, organised by EASME, has provided a space to promote exciting projects ranging from recycling children’s toys, improving the indoor air we breathe and finding safe solutions to monitor childrens’ growth and mobility. Proving once again that innovation and diversification are but a few of descriptions fit for COSME’s selection of entrepeneuring SMEs this call!

The COSME stand was visited by Commissioners Mrs. Elżbieta Bieńkowska for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, and Mr. Carlos Moedas for Research, Science and Innovation. Also present were the European Parliament President Mr. Tajani and Mrs. Lowri Evans, Director General of Industry and both were very interested in all the promising developments the four present projects can already be proud of.

Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska talked to the founders of each of the four projects while admiring the tangible results of COSME funding in SMEs. Ms. Lowri Evans was very interested to learn in which ways COSME helped the SMEs to scale up their innovative ideas and turn them into businesses.

Our EP President Tajani also dedicated his time to the 4 COSME projects and was more than happy to pose for pictures you can enjoy watching on Flickr.

Here you will recognise your peers from the COSME design based consumer goods in full European entrepeneuring mode!

Commissioner Moedas has become a fan of Eco-Birdy that recycles plastic toys and transforms them in beautiful design furniture for children. Mr. Moedas praised the project on his Twitter account as one of the best examples of circular economy. Ecobirdy has also been posted on EC’s facebook page: a great achievement as the web has many followers across the whole of Europe! Congratulations!

COSME is the EU programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). It runs from 2014 to 2020 with a planned budget of €2.3bn and supports better access to finance for SMEs and to markets, rewarding entrepreneurship and offering more favourable conditions for business creation and growth in Europe.

We are currently harvesting some very promising results on the efforts invested in the implementation of our ideas and projects. We are very proud to be part of the group and of the wonderful ideas that just seem to keep on coming! So spread the COSME BUZZ!

Real size digital boards

Newness is very importer for the decorative surfaces industry. Therefore, little information on the coming products can be shown to the public. Nevertheless, on March 2018 LOSAN shared some details about their new exclusive designs.

The new products are have been developed within the new digital laboratory of the Company. There have been doubts on where would be the best place for this facility. Finally, LOSAN decided to place it at ASERPAL installations in Vilasantar (A Coruña) Spain. By means of this, they get direct access to the warehouse of wood veneer of hat Company. That stock of fine veneer at LOSAN warehouse will be the source for digitalization processes and product development.

According to the professionals involved in the project, the image quality is already “good enough” to fit market expectations. During a visit of the Consortium partners to the digital laboratory, a technician of LOSAN explained details on design production. He showed how a single plank of rustic wood was transformed into a high quality digital pattern ready to print at industrial scale.

Pieces for furniture

The first digitally printed pieces for furniture are ready at LOGISIETE facilities. As it was expected, the result of this experience shows the challenges of the market success of new technology. Although the pieces work in terms of technical performance, many issues ought to be improved in order to be feasible for the final market.

The first difficulty relates to the matching edge banding to the surface design. The final product demands edge banding made on purpose in order to match the design of the digitally printed boards. The Consortium is able to design surfaces but has no means to produce edge banding.

A second difficulty is the cost of endless images. The objective of the project is reducing time to market but the so called “pre-printing” process of endless images is two large to allow cost-effective production at TORCULO. For that reason, the Consortium plans to use rotative sheers for cutting the impregnated paper.

A third challenge is the image quality itself. The Partners reached a wide gamut and high colour fidelity, but the grain and focus of the images is still not good enough to face the paper printed by means of rotogravure. Calibrating the image quality is the major challenge of LOSAN who is currently working in this field.

Visiting Mexico

On the first week of November 2017, a technician of SEISTAG visited Mexico. This visit focused on testing the local market for the products coming out from PRINTODECO Project which are based on newness and design.

The Mexican furniture became important activity thanks to the rustic furniture and the American market. The development took advantage of the natural conditions of Mexico, which is a huge country with large natural resources and low labour costs. Moreover, Mexico is very well placed, close to the biggest markets in the world, which are the EEUU. Thanks to this, Mexico reached a prominent position within the international furniture market between the seventies and nineties.

Since then, the furniture industry in Mexico has shown a great deterioration. The traditional furniture business based on the low costs of the Mexican labour force and took advantage of being placed close to North America market. In the context of globalization, those advantages became irrelevant against producers coming from Asia.

During the last decades, the main demand on furniture moved to low price goods, mainly coming from Asia. The local industry sowed down due to the lack of technology, innovation and design added to the globalization of the sector changed the situation. The local industry lost the traditional advantages and therefore its competitiveness. For that reason, the biggest investors changed its preferences towards processes based on raw materials. Meanwhile, the demand for high quality goods, innovative products and exclusive furniture stablished as the new furniture market in Mexico as Asia producers cannot provide that kind of solutions.

Teaming up for success

PRINTODECO Project will be presented at COSME networking event to be held on 19th of October 2017. The meeting is focused on “teaming up for success”, it will help to share experience between innovative European companies. Project partners will explain the world of melamine boards and how can it change due to digital printing. They will show new expected products and possibilities. By means of the new possibilities, new products are possible as unexpected effects and are possible. The technical coordinator of the project will be present.

During the presentation, the first digitally printed boards will be shown. Also, many details on how they were made will be explained. Challenges such as colour management and image processing. In addition to this, the customization tools will be explained. The presentation of the Project will be highlighted one of its major concepts which is radical change that digital printing brings into the value chain of the melamine board.

As the project is focused on market uptake and business development, the attention will be placed at business opportunities, new markets, marketing strategies, etc. The proposal of PRINTODECO Project will simplify the access of digital printing to new markets such as melamine boards. By doing this the framework conditions for the competitiveness of SMEs will be improved.

PRINTODECO volume 1

PRINTODECO partners present a book showing the advances of the Project. It was printed on September 2017 in full colour, with 77 pages and 43 pictures. The new book includes the project explanation, the presentation of the companies and news on the Project evolution from April 2016 to July 20017. It resumes the execution of Project during this period.

The book describes four Spanish Companies which participate in PRINTODECO Project: TORCULO, SEISTAG, LOSAN and LOGISIETE. The publication resumes the work done during first period of the Project, starting from the management of coordination of effort amount all the partners to ensure the effective operation of the project and ending the dissemination and the exploitation of project results.

The book includes the information about 17 project meetings and shows PRINTODECO results in the field of image customization and colour management. It also deals with trends and international market opportunities. Finally, the publication of PRINTODECO project describes the possibilities to innovate in terms of surface design.

The book will be presented at Brussels meeting to be held on 19th of October 2017. This is a meeting within COSME networking event, which is focused on “teaming up for success”.

Closing A Estrada Fair

On Thursday 21st closed the Profesional Encounters at Feira do Moble de A Estrada. The meeting made possible sharing up to four different European Projects in the field of wood, furniture and design. The Technical Director of PRINTODECO Project was on charge of the meetings and invited to relevants personalities of wood industry and design to share their knowledge and experiences.

During the last day, DESIGN4INNOVATION Project was explained to the public. Montserrat Rodríguez fro CIS-MADEIRA conducted the presentation of this work program, which is focused on improving public policies to boost design. The project is participated by different European Countries with the aim of sharing best practises.

The last journey also counted with the presence of two professionals who shared their experience on design. From one hand José Manuel Iglesias who success to innovate in the field of design driving the Spanish Company GALOPIN to export worldwide. From the other hand, it was present Alberto Alonso. He directs VEREDES being a local influencer on the internet regarding architecture and design.

The Encounters started on Monday the 18th showing PRINTODECO Project. The Project Coordinator and the Technical Director explained the details and first results. The Project Coordinator, Jacobo Bermejo, showed products based on digital printing applied to wood. The innovative materials caught the interest of the profesionals present at the meeting.

Round table at CdC

On September the 15th the technical director of PRINTODECO Project has steered a roundtable about collaboration between design and industry. It took place in Santiago de Compostela, at the international cultural centre Cidade da Cultura. It was part of a meeting about design and industry organized by the Wood Industry Cluster and held every two years.

This roundtable gathered qualified representatives from three different fields. Tania Pichel, from Molduras del Noroeste, and Ana Hermida from Muebles Hermida represented manufacturing sector. Designers were also present: Xabier Rilo and Ricardo Tubío from Cenlitrosmetrocadrado and José Antonio Vázquez from Studio Nomad. Finally, two Spanish research centres took part: Vicente Cambra from AITEX and Montserrat Rodríguez from GAIN CIS MADEIRA.

The roundtable was based on fast interventions that answer to specific issues on the collaboration between professional and the opportunities of the sector. The technical director of PRINTODECO steered the dialogue. The debate was focused on problematic subjects in the design sector like trends, designers and markets. The meeting success to catch the attention of more than 60 professionals who were present at the meeting. The opportunity of personalization and new technologies allowing artisan production were present during the talk.