printing dip- tech managing dip- · pdf fileand gardenia quimica, ... him to make a decision...

42 Glass-Technology International 6/2017

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W alking the floor of the Vitrum 2017 exhibition in Milan, the Dip-Tech booth instantly captures at-tention with an array of glass panels showcasing

the quality of their digital printers, and with a live demon-stration of their GPi printer. The speed of these machines has to be seen to fully be appreciated, with two operators

swapping a pair of glass panels quite rapidly and printing a variety of art designs to demonstrate the machine’s diverse range of colours. In the time it takes one operator to clean wet ink off of one panel, the printer has already completed the other panel and sits idly waiting for the next job. In an industry where speed is of extreme importance, it cannot be

Dip-Tech andFerro a perfect partnership

Dip- tech Managing Director Alon Lumbroso discusses the benefits of becoming a Ferro Company

43Glass-Technology International 6/2017

overstated that Dip-Tech’s printers are blazingly fast.The booth and all promo-tional materials display “A Ferro Company,” the result of Dip-Tech’s acquisition by Ferro Corporation in August 2017. Knowing this is an important milestone for the company, Glass-Technology International sat with Dip-Tech Manag-ing Director Alon Lumbro-so and Marketing Manager Shirley Segev to discuss the partnership with Ferro and the benefits of their new relationship.Asking how the acquisition will affect their business, Alon said, “For me per-sonally and for Dip-Tech, I think it’s a very good move. I was busy with this trans-action for quite a while, and we put a lot of effort to make it happen together with Ferro’s management,

because we believe that for Dip-Tech, and Dip-Tech’s customers, this step is very important.”The first benefit mentioned is the ability to expand Dip-Tech’s portfolio of products. Alon said, “Ferro is an ex-pert in all the raw materi-als that are part of our inks, having their experience, their thousands of products in this area, allows us to pick the right products from their portfolio and develop new inks for our customers.”Ferro’s already extensive line of materials has re-cently been bolstered by ac-quisitions of Endeka Group and Gardenia Quimica, which were also added to the company’s expanding portfolio. These additions will undoubtedly also aid Dip-Tech in developing new inks for their printers. (The Endeka acquisition is ex-

pected to close before the end of the year).Perhaps a more important facet of the acquisition is Dip-Tech gaining the clout of a parent company. Speaking on this benefit, Alon said, “Ferro has of-fices in 28 countries and over 5,000 employees, so together we can do much more across the global market. Dip-Tech is a rela-tively small company with 110 employees and it is quite challenging to evolve over the 60 countries we are now selling in. With Ferro, it will be much, much easier.“Additionally, there is the credit we have in dealing with our prospects. We are talking to glass proces-sors who have more con-fidence now to buy from us because they’ve known Ferro for a long time. They appreciate Ferro as a pro-fessional company, very stable, very strong, and now that Dip-Tech is part of Ferro platform, it’s a strong reference. So they feel more confident to buy equipment from us.”Already, having the clout of Ferro has had a positive benefit for Dip-Tech. Alon said, “I just spoke with our agent in Spain about a cer-tain prospect that we have been in touch with for a while. Now our agent up-dated me that since we are part of Ferro, it will help him to make a decision since he has known Ferro for many years.”To help Ferro work more

effectively with Dip-Tech, the company has begun training Ferro employees. Just before Vitrum 2017, Dip-Tech hosted a training seminar for Ferro teams from Italy, France, Turkey and Spain, and they plan to host more seminars to help Ferro understand what Dip-Tech offers and their advantages, and what its vision for the future is. Training has already been completed for Ferro’s North America and Asia branches, and over the next year, more teams will be brought in, allowing them to work together more ef-fectively.The relationship also has benefits for Ferro. “Dip-Tech is very different from the other companies Ferro has recently acquired. They are materials companies, and we are the only com-pany within Ferro that is selling capital equipment. It’s a completely differ-ent business when you sell materials. You sell, you get the money in thirty days, done deal. For us, it’s completely different. Sales cycles might reach two to three years. Once the or-der is received, we build the machine for the cus-tomer. We test the machine before shipping it to them, then install it. We manage training sessions, technical support, spare parts service and much more. We con-sider ourselves married to that customer for life and we want this marriage to succeed. It’s a new busi-

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tering a revolution in this market. We work to expose and convince architects to use digital printing on glass for facades, windows, bal-conies and so on. It’s not easy for a small company from Israel to change the world, and with Ferro, this will be easier thanks to the critical mass, which is much higher.”When asked about the company’s future plans for expansion of their business, Alon said, “In general, we

ing. They wanted to be part of our market, and now we are two leaders working together. It’s a very good relationship for both of us.“We are primarily work-ing in two areas; automo-tive and architecture. In automotive, we replace other technology, but in architecture, mainly in ex-terior architecture, it’s a new market. We sell our machines to the dreamers who are looking to change their business. We are fos-

a clear leader in this mar-ket. We started this appli-cation of digital printing with ceramic ink on glass 12 years ago, and we have only few competitors. You can count them on one hand. However, we have a much larger install base. We are working with most of the big players in the world.“Ferro is a leader in the materials market for print-ing on glass while we are the leader in digital print-

ness for Ferro, and it re-quired a different mindset in order to decide on buy-ing this kind of company.“Secondly, Ferro is go-ing digital. Ferro had no digital solution to print on glass before, although they had some small stakes in ceramic tile printing. Now they own a company that is the pioneer in digital print-ing with ceramic ink; Ferro is also a leading producer of digital inks for ceramic tile decoration. Dip-Tech is


are focusing more on ma-chines that will replace or complement screen print-ing solutions. Where before we were pushing into ar-chitecture, now we are ad-dressing other markets that were already working with silk or screen printing, and we would like to capture a larger part of this market with digital printing.”One of the examples Alon gave was the automotive market. “Dip-Tech started with the automotive mar-

ket, but over time our fo-cus shifted to architecture. We would like to go back into this market and claim a larger share. To give an example, automotive glass makers previously used our machines to do smaller print runs of 20 or 30 units, and above those num-bers, they would use silk or screen printing because it was not cost effective to set up screen printing for such small numbers. Now with our newer lines of machines, which are faster and even more reliable, they can use our printers for runs of two, three or even four hundred units as their break-even point.”At the conclusion of the in-terview, Alon also hinted at more developments, saying that at next year’s Glasstec exhibition, they would have

some big news to share.Immediately after the in-terview, Shirley began a tour of the Dip-Tech booth, pointing out several of the design patterns intended for exterior and interior architecture projects as well as for interior design. As part of its service to clients, Dip-Tech offers a catalogue of copyright-free patterns that can be printed in a single colour or using a variety of mate-rial textures. The patterns are saved as vector files, meaning they can be scaled however large or small a designer wants without a loss of image quality. The number of ways that pat-terns can be combined and altered seems to be limited only by the imagination of the architect, and even the few examples shown in the

booth demonstrate how they can be fused togeth-er to produce incredible works of art.Shirley offered an example of using digital printing to simulate stained glass. “We have some amazing pro-jects with customers who are using digital printing for stained glass applica-tion because obviously it saves them many resourc-es. Instead of a project tak-ing one year and costing a lot of money, they can complete the project in sev-eral days.”The tour included a view-ing of several glass panels using the same copyright-free patterns in varying lev-els of opacity and pattern density, and Shirley ex-plained how these patterns could be used functionally for energy control on exte-

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popular choices from the 2017 catalogue, further displaying Dip-Tech’s con-tinual services for their customers. Additionally, when glass processors re-ceive their machine, they are welcome to participate in training webinars that will show them how to best take advantage of these patterns and textures for all their future projects.Shirley offered several example applications for the materials in interior design, suggesting they could be used for glass ta-ble-tops, shower doors or kitchen backsplashes. She

are popular and trendy in the market. Our architect division is very well con-nected to the leading archi-tectural offices around the world, so we know what’s popular within the market.”When the 2018 collection of materials hits the mar-ket, it will include new pat-terns as well as the most

This allows architects and designers to cover a single large pane of glass in their selected material without tiling the pattern.“These files are from the 2017 collection, and we are already working on the 2018 collection,” Shirley explained. “Every year we identify the materials that

rior glass applications.In addition to the Pattern Catalogue, Dip-Tech also offers the INTERIORI: a selection of 52 material simulations to be used in both interior and exterior designs. The selections in-clude marble, wood, stone and concrete, and the files are large, 3 by 1.2 metres.


pointed out two designs in the booth mounted on bars and backlit. Lower-ing or raising the light level revealed additional pat-terns printed on the glass over the texture, and this kind of application could be used in nightclubs, mu-seums and market venues in a variety of creative and eye-catching ways.Shirley brought up an-other service called CMiX. “Usually customers work with digital mixed colours, meaning a great variety of colours which are cre-ated throughout the print-ing process, by mixing the

basic colours. Dip-Tech has six basic colours, and special inks like etch, side one and slip resistance. The machines will mix these ink colours to produce any colour, but we also have an application we call CMiX, another tool that is used for premixes. So, if a designer wants a certain shade of blue, they would get a se-lection of shades to choose from, and they would then receive a recipe that shows them what inks to mix out-side the machine to get the exact shade they need and then put it in the machine to print. This tool also in-

cludes an indicator if the colour references a RAL or Pantone colour.“And now, the advantage with the new generation of NEra printer is that the process of changing these custom inks is much fast-er, within fifteen minutes, while our competitors need hours. This is a very clear advantage.” The next part of the tour showcased several works of art and images, both in full colour and black and white, which helps to high-light the capabilities of the printers in displaying high resolution custom images.

Here again, the uses of this kind of application are near limitless. They can be used to print art for display in homes or businesses, or to print logos or artwork on bus windows. (Or any win-dows, as Shirley suggested libraries and museums might also take advantage of the technology.) Using a knockout effect on an image and printing first layer in colours, while printing an-other layer using only black ink, it is possible to display art on one side of a window while still granting visibility through the window’s other side with only black dots

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that the human eye can eas-ily see through. And finally, depending on which side of the glass is displayed, an image can have a matte fin-ish or glossy.Shirley then pointed out a selection of glass shapes used for bullet proof, ma-rine glazing and automo-

tive applications which she considers one of the most important areas for high speed printing. Regard-less of the shape or size of the glass, Dip-Tech of-fers a machine capable of printing patterns quickly, reliably and efficiently. The type of ink used in these

applications is industry rated for UV resistance and won’t fade or de-grade with expo-sure to the sun.At the conclusion of the tour, Shirley brought up insu-lated glass units

and the unique challenges they bring to digital print-ing. With an image needing to be printed on both panes of glass, the printer must be completely accurate to ensure image quality. Dip-Tech’s latest innovation in software has a func-tion built in for this type of printing, even calculating the space between the two glass panes to create fast and accurate results.Coming away from the tour, it’s hard not to be excited about the creative possibilities the GPi and NEra printer lines offer to many industries that use printed glass. But along with freedom of artistic expression, both lines offer cost saving benefits, de-creased downtime switch-ing between print jobs, flexibility in capturing im-age data, and fast output that will see the length of projects radically decreas-ing. It’s a tantalizing future with these machines on the market, and both Dip-Tech and Ferro are poised to take a large share of many markets with their com-bined areas of expertise.

Dip-Tech a Ferro company

Dip-Tech:5 Atir Yeda Industrial Park - Kfar Saba 44643 - Israel

Tel.: +972-9-77908400 - Fax: +972-9-7908440

E-mail: [email protected]

www.dip-tech.com

Ferro Global Headquarters:

6060 Parkland Boulevard -Suite 250

Mayfield Heights, OH 44124 - USA

Tel.: +1-216-8755401 - Fax: +1-216-8755627

www.ferro.com

printing dip- tech managing dip- · pdf fileand gardenia quimica, ... him to make a decision...

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