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LOSAN

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.

Enhanced quality

Moving from analogical to digital print is a challenge due to the high quality of the traditional surfaces produced by rotogravure. As most technicians know, their sharpness and range are difficult to reproduce when using ink jet technology. Sharpness is about resolution. It refers to the detail that the image can contain. Range is about how wide the spectrum of printed colour can be.
As a result of the development carried out by PRINTODECO Partners, they have been able to reproduce the quality of analogically printed images by means of large scale, low cost, digital printing. The development process was steered by SEISTAG. The technicians of the Company looked for the best available technologies. They also proposed the experimental development in collaboration with all the Consortium Partners.
To reach the quality demanded by the customers, LOSAN worked hard selecting the appropriate inks, paper, and head printers. The three variables are linked so they condition the final quality of the printed images. The result of the research carried out by LOSAN helped to achieve a level that might well be described as “sufficient quality”. This means that the customer can hardly distinguish between the analogical original and the digital copy.
The work would not have been possible without the help of TORCULO. This company is 100% focused on Graphic Communication. Therefore, they have acquired the tools and the knowledge to ensure the quality of the printed images. Thanks to their collaboration, the quality of the digital reproduction has improved their CIELab coordinates. This is the standard for the graphic industry and it means that a non-expert would not be able make the distinction between the two samples.
During the development of the printing quality standards, the contribution of LOGISIETE was important. As they are retailers who sale furniture, they are in touch with the final customer. By means of this, they get the best feedback so they can inform about what is considered good enough. During the development process, they provided relevant information on what it is accepted by the market. Now that the Project is finishing, they ensure that the printing technology has reached the quality expected by the market.

Printing directly the boards

By July 2018, most of the objectives of PRINTODECO has been accomplished. The Partnership made possible printing paper using digital printers, and making melamine boards using that paper. By means of this, time to market is now shorter than ever. Moreover, the costs for developing new references dropped. In addition to this, the Partners already explore printing technologies for up-scaling the production.
Nevertheless, the Partners discovered that printing papers has limits for extreme customization. Using printed-paper makes difficult to reach the level of every single board to be different. Therefore, in summer 2018 SEISTAG started a new development line. The new approach relies on printing directly over the melamine board and counts with the support of all the Consortium Partners.
In order to make this possible, different printing technology is used at TORCULO facilities. The printing process moved from water-inks to polymeric inks. Instead of paper passing throughout a line of fixed print heads, large format printers with moving print heads have been used to print directly over large-scale boards provided by LOSAN. Images have been provided by SEISTAG, and LOGISIETE designed the experiment.

Five years old

In 2018, SEISTAG will be five years old. The company is celebrating and wants to thank the PRINTODECO Partners for their trust and wisdom on wood… It has been a great opportunity for SEISTAG to share a European Project with five star companies such as TORCULO, LOGISIETE, and LOSAN. This collaboration has helped SEISTAG to make great leaps forward.
In addition to the inspiration provided by the project partners, SEISTAG wants to acknowledge the European Agency for SMEs for its support since the PRINTODECO Project was rewarded the grant in 2016. Many things would not have been possible without its help.
As a result, SEISTAG reached many recognitions over the last years. In 2015, the company was recognized as “Innovative SME” by the National Ministry for Economy. In 2016, the Regional Government awarded SEISTAG with the “silver label” of Innovative Companies: occupying the 13th position in terms of innovative activity in Galicia. In 2017, the well-known Ardán Business Data Base included SEISTAG in the category of “Gazelle Company” because of three consecutive years of turnover expansion. Today, in 2018, SEISTAG is happy and prouod to be shortlisted the Financial Times as one of the 1000 fastest growing European Companies.
These achievements have been made possible thanks to the company personnel. Their ambition, professionalism and effort enabled SEISTAG to reach the current position. So, Thanks to all!

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.