Equipment supplier Bobst and Radex, a startup company owned by multiple stakeholders with a track record in DOD inkjet printing, have launched Mouvent, a new company dedicated to developing digital printing technologies, primarily for the textile and label markets.
The joint venture Mouvent, which is comprised of 80 employees in Switzerland, is to become the digital printing provider of Bobst. Central to the development at Mouvent, explains Bobst, is digital printing technology developed by Radex, which is based on an integrated cluster and compact design. The company states this technology represents a “quantum leap for the industry.” This Radex technology will be the centerpiece of new machines developed by Mouvent for a variety of markets such as textile, labels, corrugated board, flexible packaging and folding carton.
“We truly believe this is a watershed moment for the future of digital printing independent of the industry or market,” said Jean-Pascal Bobst, CEO of BOBST Group SA. “Current industry trends – including high demand for digitalization, short runs, fast availability, promotion and versioning, personalized and seasonal products, and increasing sensitivity towards cost and environment – are driving demand for high quality and affordable digital printing machines.
“Through Mouvent we aim to initiate a quantum leap in this area, ultimately providing the market with what it needs most; highly reliable industrial digital printing on different substrates at a competitive cost.”
Mouvent explains that it provides integrated, complete solutions based on its internal development of the Mouvent Cluster. It writes the software around the printers, develops inks and coatings for various substrates, as well as providing a full servicing offering.
Its first machine launched is a digital printer for textiles, which prints with up to eight colours, with what the company describes as a full product pipeline to follow. The Mouvent Cluster design is the base building block for all systems, current and in development.
“Our radical new approach is to use a base cluster which is arranged in a modular, scalable matrix instead of having different print bars for different applications and different print width,” said Piero Pierantozzi, Co-Founder of Mouvent. “The Mouvent Cluster is the key technology behind the Mouvent machines, resulting in high optical resolution for a crisp, colorful, very high printing quality, as well as a never-seen-before flexibility and possibilities in terms of machine development. Simplicity is our engineering philosophy.”
Mouvent states its printers are the smallest digital printers in their category – closer to desktop printing than to traditional analogic printers like flexo – making them very compact, light-weighted and easily accessible. The compact system is designed to allow for easier settings and start-up with less fine adjustments required.
“We are very excited to start rolling out the pipeline in the months ahead,” said Simon Rothen, CEO of Mouvent. “Today is the announcement of an exciting journey of bringing large-scale digital printing to various industries. The digital printing solutions offered by Mouvent will present new opportunities for all sorts of companies, bringing more flexibility, unmatched productivity, shorter time to market and infinite variation, all with a very compact and energy efficient design. This will revolutionize the digital printing world.”
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