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  Mike Turner – Don’t sell yourself short!

  Posted by .News on 9 August 2005 at 23:21

  

  Mike Turner
  Don’t sell yourself short!

  I congratulate Itai Halevy on his article on this page in last month’s issue. He obviously did not get where he is today (Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of Scitex Vision) without knowing a thing or two – and also being in the situation of having a quality product to sell.
  He even reiterates what we (the SPA) have been saying all along – digital inkjet printing is an opportunity and not a threat to screen printers – and this is absolutely true as many of you can testify……..BUT, what he failed to tell you is that he represents an entire industry that has declared war on the screen process!

  Imagine life without the screen process – pretend that it had never been invented.
  Then imagine someone trying to invent digital printing in all its forms.
  There would be virtually no market for it assuming that offset, flexo, gravure and other processes were as far along the line as they could be without sophisticated electronics – apart from in the very short run arena.
  The sign industry would be limited to hand painted and basic electronic signs, posters would be printed by multiple sheet offset – printed circuit boards would not exist (so no electronics, computers – and no digital printers, T-shirts would be embroidered, dyed or painted – even with these few examples, the world would be a very different place.

  As the screen process has been invented, however – there is a marketplace simply ripe for the taking from a mature industry – by a thrusting young industry – and who can blame them?

  We screen printers are far from being Luddites, and being masters of both colour and ingenuity – we have helped develop the digital printing machines so that they do our bidding – and also become more profitable by utilising their short-run capabilities.
  At the same time, we have been harbouring a viper in our bosom and this viper is now out to get as much business as it can – mostly from the screen industry. At least 20% of screen business has transferred to digital in the last three years – and that trend looks as if it will continue until realisation dawns that there is little point in trying to do everything currently done by screen – digitally! Common sense will eventually dictate that there are horses for courses.

  Hopefully, before that day dawns, manufacturers of screen equipment will start to revisit screen and see how they can develop the process from its slothful maturity and revitalise it so that it is an easily controllable mechanical process capable of accurate ink – and any other fluid deposition on to any substrate – of flat or three dimensions – provided it stays still for long enough! Rocket science is needed to continue the development of digital machinery and consumables to their ultimate conclusion – and that is much more expensive than modernising a tried and tested process.

  Why bother – you say?

  Quality is the answer.
  The customer – who is rightly king, is not bothered as to which process prints his or her job, but eventually he or she will realise that where extreme depth of colour, just for one instance, is simply not available from other processes.
  If we wish to slow the trend away from screen, we must fight back every bit as vigorously as those thrusting digital people – and win some time for our own development to take place – before it is too late.

  Change is inevitable – but change should be for the better, not just for the sake of change.

  ©Mike Turner – 02/05

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  .News replied 20 years, 4 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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