Fujifilm has announced the opening of a new digital ink manufacturing facility at its manufacturing plant in Broadstairs.
The new digital ink manufacturing facility has been two years in development, and is the result of an investment of over €4 million, with an additional €2.5 million invested to upgrade the research and development department.
It has been built to accommodate a projected annual increase of 56% in the production of UV ink at the site, manufactured in a range of batch sizes of up to 4000 litres. The facility has the capacity to manufacture 6000 tonnes of ink per year, which will be produced in a variety of packs from 250 ml RFID tagged pouches and cartridges up to 10 litre packs for high productivity wide format printer platforms.
Colin Boughton, operations director at the Fujifilm Speciality Ink Systems’ Broadstairs site, commented: ‘We have planned everything meticulously over the last few years, recognising that to stay at the forefront of digital ink technology with our range of Uvijet inks, we need to work with state of the art equipment and have the ability to increase production and packing volumes. Our vision is to remain at the forefront of this technology and to re-invest every year in order to maintain that position. For instance, we have worked closely with a specialist company to develop next generation dispersion equipment for our inks, and this will allow us to reduce particle sizes to less than 100 nm – true nanotechnology.’
Over 340 employees work at the Broadstairs site and more than 80% of these are involved in digital ink research and development and manufacture. It was of utmost importance that the workforce should be included as much as possible in the company’s plans, resulting in over 80 employee ideas being used in the final design of the facility. In addition, a high level of importance has been placed on training for all staff, as the company is keen to ensure that everyone has a full appreciation of digital technology.
As always, the company works tirelessly to ensure that all products and processes are as environmentally friendly as possible, and it has invested significantly in alternative methods of reducing its environmental footprint at the new manufacturing facility.
‘Waste’ energy in the form of heat from production processes and compressed air generation via a bespoke new heat exchange system is used to provide 70% of the heating required for the factory. In addition, a new boiler plant has been installed which incorporates compact, modern, high efficiency modulating condensing boilers that use 40% less fossil fuels than conventional heating systems. Combine this with the latest figures from the site which show that only 7% of the waste generated goes to landfill, with 23% going to energy recovery and 70% recycled, this means that effectively 93% is reused in some way, and the company’s ‘green’ ethos is easily apparent.
