Sergio Ferrari is the MD and his background is as an engineer, inventor and lead designer of JetSet technology. JetSet has built a substantial team of 40 experienced professionals and this new business designed to help OEM's manufacture machinery for many differing industrial applications using inkjet as the central component.
For JetSet, innovation is key to the business. They believe that they are unique in not having any fixed arrangement with one technology provider, allowing them the opportunity to focus on using the right components and technology for the specific job at hand.
When Sergio talks about the purpose of JetSet, he enthusiastically explains that it is not JetSets philosophy to have a fixed product and sell as many of these products as possible. In contrast, JetSet's vision is to produce state of the art custom machinery deploying technology and components that are right for the specific machine, for the specific application and requirement laid out by the customer.
"Whatever we produce depends entirely on what the customer needs, not what we want to sell." Sergio says smiling.
To this extent JetSet will use whatever technology they believe is absolutely right for the job and by doing this, they will focus upon solutions first, and technology second.
Based in beautiful Bergamo in Northern Italy's Lombardy region, the location is in the centre of a hub of innovation that has existed for generations within traditional industries such as textile and ceramics as well as automotive engineering with specialist manufacturers such as Brembo. This means that JetSet draws upon local expertise and Universities in the region. In addition to the Italian inkjet industry, some of the worlds leading print technology brands also recognize the area with the likes of Epson, Ricoh and now Konica Minolta establishing major innovation centres, further underlining the importance and productivity of the region.
JetSet believe they do not have many, if any, genuine competitors, and they certainly have none they are aware of in the northern Italy.
Sergio continues, "Our aim is to become a technological and manufacturing development centre for some of the leading brands and OEMs in the market. JetSet provides customers with a tremendous resource as we have the design and production competence to bring product ideas to life, then integrate them into the manufacturing process."
If one takes a look at many innovative business models, this vision makes complete sense. Having an independently operated centre focusing on innovation and development of industrial print technology to place directly into production has tremendous value. This focal point for innovation will develop new technologies for companies and professionals with ideas and channels to market, and gives them an additional resource to develop the technology with one company, making it a quicker and simpler process.
Integrating industrial innovation
In recent years JetSet has successfully designed, developed and integrated industrial inkjet machines for ceramics, label and textile printing, proving that the company clearly possesses the technical expertise and engineering competence to succeed.
Sergio explains, "We believe that we are the only provider who can make machines completely from design to manufacture. We don't need any other provider, as we have the engine, design ability and tooling capability to give a customer a true end to end solution and a host of unique benefits."
JetSet makes industrial level machines that are all created in house. The aim is to provide the first prototype, and from this point they can produce small, medium or large amounts of the same machinery, designed to suit. It is a model that is already working well with a clutch of customers mainly based in Northern Italy.
Diversity of the different applications
JetSet works with printing technologies for ceramics, labels, printing for footwear, printing onto textile and other surfaces. Sergio explains, "The variety of differing applications are only limited by the imagination, as we develop many differing types of applications where inkjet gives unique value, flexibility and advantage. Inkjet is developing and being integrated into many different industries and JetSet, with our experience, capability and team are perfectly positioned to exploit this.
Sergio continues, "For a recent customer we developed a ceramic inkjet printer. What they were missing from their production was a lighter printing machine that was capable of printing onto specific ceramic tiles for people who want highly personalised bathrooms. This is obviously a small production system but the demands on quality are the same as high production systems. The machine we created has been installed and our customer is delighted."
For ceramics you do not print CMYK as the patterns tend to be printed brown, grey and other spot colours. And they are able to create finishes using different drop sizes. For the specific heads for the ceramic print machine JetSet used Xaar 1002 GS6.
JetSet have developed an innovative modular printing system to help each company to test each different head system for the finish and look of the specific tile. The JetSet head system is really easy to use and unplug ready for printing – a key innovation designed to provide easy to use solutions creating machinery quickly and efficiently.
With this system a manufacturer can change colour very quickly enabling designers new possibilities and helping ink companies to test and develop the right inks. For example, in the ceramic market the designers are normally based outside the production, so the designer doesn't necessarily want to invest in an industrial scale volume printing device, but using a smaller printing device, such as that which was developed by JetSet, they can now design and test very easily.
In order to create the right machine, JetSet work very closely with the ink, dying plants and colorants to ensure that they get the right solutions and the right technology.
So what is the next big thing for inkjet?
According to Sergio, he firmly believes that packaging is the next big thing, along with the printing of labels and so on. He believes that we will see an increase in printing onto cylinder as this provides brands with considerable competitive and creative value.
JetSet into the future
This business looks set to thrive as it is perfectly positioned within a centre of innovation and with its focus upon inkjet development and integration, it will no doubt benefit from the increase in adoption of inkjet across a number of industries. To launch the business was a bold but one that makes complete sense given the engineering expertise and the trend towards digitization within manufacture. As JetSet gets closer to the InPrint Show in November 2015, more news and development will follow.
www.industrialprintshow.com
