Managed Print Services (MPS) represents an exciting growth segment for the print industry with an estimated global market of over 25 billion by 2014 (InfoTrends). More than just supplies and service contracts, MPS offers a holistic solution to the management of output technologies and workflows for organizations and companies of all sizes. MPS drives business process innovation by helping customers better manage the volume of documents flowing through their organization – and the costs associated with printing, sharing and updating them.From small businesses to global enterprises, MPS optimizes the configuration of increasingly heterogeneous print output infrastructures, while delivering change management support so customers can successfully adapt to new technology and streamlined work processes. The depth and breadth of the delivery of complex MPS solutions requires a high degree of business process automation delivered by specialized software tools to smoothly integrate and orchestrate efficient service delivery processes.The objective of this talk is to provide an overview of the key MPS processes and a survey of benchmark technology approaches used by leading OEM and application providers to address customer needs. The talk includes an up-to-the-minute overview of the methods, processes and technologies that are refocusing the print industry towards a service orientation, convergence with ITO and next generation commercial applications such as Cloud Print, Print as a Service and Hardware as a Service.

In this study, the line quality defects in digital printing will be evaluated and analyzed. The design of a line quality analysis system will be described in some detail. The attributes of line qualities have been defined in the ISO13660 standard. Among them, the line width, raggedness and blurriness are used to reflect the edge features of lines. The analysis of line quality can be applied to evaluate both text and line quality. Using carefully designed test targets, it can also be used to evaluate other printing problems like inter-color bleed, positional errors from a device, and color registration problems. By using digital printer with different imaging mechanisms or different types, the three attributes, line width, edge raggedness, and edge blurriness, which best present the digital printing quality, are measured and analyzed. The measurement of the line quality attributes is made through the line tool in analysis system. The evaluation and analysis of line quality in digital printing provides a basis to solve the line quality measurement in current digital prints, and offers a practical technology for quality controlling of digital prints.

Biotoners represent a new class of electrostatic imaging powders that include a significant percentage of biobased materials. These include bioresins derived from crops, such as: corn, soy beans, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, or other renewable resources. In addition to a sustainable resin supply, biotoners offer other benefits, including the compostability1 of certain bioresins and their decomposition in the presence of water at elevated temperatures. This latter property is an important aid to the deinking of office waste papers. Bioresin sources and the status of market development are provided in this commentary.

Digital and Variable Data Workflow and Presses have enabled significant new trends in the PSP Production environment. The move to very large increases in automated submission of short-run content has led to significant complexity in deploying and managing a production environment. Creation of content, managing this content through production of customer products and tracking the efficiency of this production covers the workflow deployed inside a PSP.But the world is expanding. Contemporary workflows include end-to-end solutions, routing and distribution of jobs between facilities, digital rights management, automated content generation/assembly, content storage and security. Digital printers require less and less manual tasks to calibrate and run reliably. Content generation and storage is moving to the cloud. This broad and changing set of capabilities opens new opportunities for products and services.Today we see “big bet” research efforts at HP Labs on: automated publishing, document lifecycle, and commercial print automation. Yesterday's problem of getting the RIP and imposition to cooperate with the press and finishing equipment is no longer the core issue requiring focus. New opportunities are opened. Equipment, workflow, and end-to-end solutions are capable of managing large quantities of small jobs, from different customers, efficiently, and of paramount importance, automatically.Legacy equipment and practices create challenges as businesses and customers alike grapple with systems optimized for conventional print or the digital world of the last few years. This presentation explores tension points and future opportunities opened by the rapid expansion in capabilities of digital printing presses and workflows.

In ceramics decoration by xerography, once the toner particles have been deposited, the substrates need to be subjected to thermal treatment at temperatures above 400 °C to eliminate the organic constituents in the toner and enable the inorganic constituents to be integrated into the ceramic surface. The inorganic component includes an active inorganic fraction in decoration that is able to modify the aesthetic appearance of the surface to be coated, and an inorganic fraction that facilitates fusibility and integration into the substrate.At present, this type of toner is made by the pulverisation method, with the presence of irregularly-shaped particles and inorganic particles that are only partly coated by the plastic organic matrix, which can lead to problems of particle flowability and electrical conductivity.This paper describes a new method of ceramic toner preparation by suspension polymerisation that avoids the above problems. The method allows a high inorganic component content in the toner composition to be reached, assuring good colour saturation in decoration.

This presentation quantitatively compares paper and electronic media from the perspectives of CO₂ emissions and work efficiency. Should we reject paper out of hand based on environmental considerations? Can electronic reading devices replace paper books for leisure and work? I discuss these issues based on various analyses and experiments.

In recent years, environmental issues and energy costs have created a need for lower energy consumption in the fusing systems of printers and copiers. To develop toner for low-energy fusing systems, there are several methods to manufacture polyester chemically prepared toner. But there are still environmental concerns due to the use of organic solvent during manufacturing process. We developed a novel process for aqueous-based polyester chemically prepared toner by using nonionic surfactant. In this study, we report that nano-size emulsions can be obtained for the synthesis of toner particles without any organic solvent. We indicate the relationship between nonionic surfactant and the emulsification of polyester.

Printing Technologies are additive technologies which allow the deposition of functional materials exactly at positions where they are needed to assure a certain functionality, e.g., employing traditional inks, printers print the functionality color. During the development of traditional and digital printing technologies press makers and printers gained a number of very special competences which enable them to extend their scope to print inks addressing functionalities beyond color. By printing inks which represent the functionalities insulation, conductivity and semi-conductivity in appropriate patterns on top of each other, electrical circuitry, can be manufactured which allow introducing new functionalities into printed matter. The choice of the technology per printed functionality depends on the printability of the functional ink. Future Hybrid Manufacturing Systems will consist of a modular designed machine base which will allow the user to “knob-in” the printing technology he needs for a given functionality, efficiently conflating the traditional and the modern non-impact ones. The deposition of the materials in required patterns will be complemented by further digital manufacturing technologies. Most promising is laser technology for pattern improvement, post-press treatment of the printed patterns, and cutting. This employment of digital fabrication technologies will facilitate very short runs and change over times.The paper will discuss opportunities, challenges and limitations of printing smart objects with functionalities beyond color.

Printed Circuit boards (PCBs) are traditionally fabricated using subtractive technologies such as lithography and etching. Discrete passive and active components are typically attached by pick and place and then connected using wire bonding and soldering. In this paper we show that direct printing can replace many of the traditional steps and consequently allow circuits to be fabricated on novel substrates and 3D geometries. Specifically, we report on the integration of Aerosol Jet^® with the printing of interconnects, passives and COTS attachment. The automated generation of the printed patterns (tool paths) is based on standard Eagle CAD PCB layout software. Multilayer circuits are fabricated by alternately printing metallic wires and a polymeric insulator. Passive components such as resistors and capacitors are printed from a library. The carbon-based resistors have a range of 50 Ω to 1 MΩ and the parallel plate capacitors range from 1 pF to 1 nF. Active devices can be incorporated into the circuit by attaching discrete IC chips with metallic and adhesive inks. The processing temperature is below 150°C for all the printing and curing steps. Overall, Aerosol Jet^® is a cost effective method for directly printing circuits onto non-traditional substrates and is also desirable for prototyping and short-run manufacturing