Can Benny Landa do it again? He spear-headed the digital printing revolution in 1993 when he launched his Indigo E-Print 1000, promising “a print run of one”. Now, after selling Indigo to HP in 2001, he has sensationally returned to print with Landa Digital Printing and Nanography – a new method of printing that he believes will be the basis for a second digital revolution. On the eve of Drupa 2012, PrintWeek’s Jo Francis asked Landa about his fresh ambitions to transform print by creating a new industry standard. 

Jo Francis Benny, we spoke with you at Ipex 2010, where you received a Champions in Print award, and it felt very much as though you’d stepped back from your involvement in print. Not in a million years would we have imagined seeing you with a brand new print technology at Drupa 2012. Welcome back – how does it feel? 

Benny Landa Fantastic! I’m more energised and excited than I’ve ever been. 

Jo Francis At Ipex, you told us you were working on a new venture in nanotechnology in the field of energy. At what point did it become something that had a print application? 

Benny Landa Years ago, at Landa Labs, we needed to develop super-small particles for our energy work. Nobody had a way of doing that so we had to develop our own method for producing tiny nano particles. We had a breakthrough in making them, and I guess, because I’ve spent my whole life in printing, the moment I saw it I thought “Hey, maybe this will work for pigments”. Suddenly the lightbulb lit, and we realised we had the answer for print.

Jo Francis Why are the nano pigments so special? 

Benny Landa Many materials dramatically change their properties when you make them as nanomaterials – metals, for example, dramatically drop in their melting temperature. And all sorts of optical properties appear. Organic materials also change their properties and become much more efficient absorbers of light, so you need a lot less pigment if it’s a nano pigment. And almost as important, nano pigments only absorb light, they don’t scatter it, so you get pure colours.

Jo Francis How big are your nano particles?

Benny Landa Our pigments are a few tens of nanometres in size. They are very small and have totally different properties from regular pigments. They are light absorbers on steroids. They really are amazing particles.

Jo Francis You say Nanography uses ‘ink ejectors’ rather than ‘inkjet’. What’s the difference – how does Nanography work?

Benny Landa Basically our process works like this: with inkjet you eject drops directly on to paper. We don’t do that. We use very similar printheads, but they eject droplets on to a heated blanket conveyor belt. We have had to do some special modifications to the printheads to make them work well with our process, but they are very similar to inkjet heads.

Benny Landa So we eject the drops of ink onto the heated blanket, then we dry the ink image completely by driving the water out of the image with hot air. All you have left is the pigment and the polymer. It’s an ultra-thin layer of polymeric film. Then, you just laminate that film on to the paper by pressing it on to the paper. It transfers with 100% efficiency.

Jo Francis You just press it? It doesn’t need any heat or anything else to make it transfer?

Benny Landa That’s right, it’s just using contact. So the image is on the surface of the substrate, but it’s ultra thin. And because when it’s transferred it’s not a liquid, it’s a plastic film, it sticks to the paper. The moment it touches the paper it’s bonded to it and perfectly dry. All the moisture has been driven off before you touch the paper.

Jo Francis It sounds a bit like a temporary tattoo, or a decal. Is it something like that?

Benny Landa Yes, you could liken it to a decal. But because it’s so very thin, it follows the contours of the paper, so it hardly changes the gloss levels, which is what you want. And it sticks tremendously whether it’s paper or any plastic packaging film, including polyethylene. It’s super simple, but the results are unbelievable.

Jo Francis What about the quality?

Benny Landa There is no printing process that produces these kinds of results. None. We talk about print qualities, not print quality because the combination of qualities is so fantastic. The dots have outstanding sharpness, gloss, uniformity and scratch resistance. I mentioned the unusual properties of nano materials and one of them is abrasion resistance. And because of the very high optical density of the pigments we can print high coverage without any issues.

Jo Francis What have been the main technical challenges in developing it? We’ve seen some inkjet presses have problems with issues like ink drying and the requirement for pre-treated stocks. What was your eureka moment?

Benny Landa One was the breakthrough in producing nano pigments. The second was the realisation that we could do this with aqueous inks, which are preferable, both from an economic and from an environmental point of view. There’s nothing like nature’s own pure, clean solvent – water.

Jo Francis What do you say to people who find nanotechnology quite worrying, in that they fear the particles could go out of control or leach into the environment in unexpected ways?

Benny Landa Nature is full of nanotechnology. We eat it every day, we drink it. The ones that are dangerous either float through the air or are poisonous and can penetrate the skin. Our inks are innocuous. We use food-grade materials that are compatible for packaging.

Jo Francis When you launched the Indigo in 1993, you had one model. You’re coming to Drupa with six including B3, B2 and B1 sheetfed models and two web presses (see box overleaf). That’s very ambitious. Tell us about the thinking behind this portfolio of products.

Benny Landa You can do a lot when you take years to do it! We designed these different models to cover the key commercial segments.

Jo Francis Are there other print-related areas where your nanotechnology could be relevant? What about other sizes, such as wide-format display printing?

Benny Landa Very-wide-format is not immediately going to go to Nanography because our process requires the blanket. Every technology has its sweet spots and I think inkjet does a great job for outdoor signage and will continue to do that for a long time. Just like xerography has its place and a sweet spot. I think for mainstream commercial packaging and publishing – that’s ours.

Jo Francis What’s your sweet spot on run lengths?

Benny Landa It depends how you define it, by A4 pages or B1 sheets. For B1 sheets, it’s in the thousands, which is a fantastic breakthrough in terms of crossover. We’re talking about significant run lengths. 

Jo Francis What about using Nanography for coatings and laminating?

Benny Landa We expect that some of our heads will be used for lacquers, special colours and protective coatings.

Jo Francis Could there be a standalone coating machine?

Benny Landa Maybe.

Jo Francis Who have you partnered with on the press chassis? 

Benny Landa All the web machines, from bottom to top are done in-house. The sheetfed machines, because of the crucial nature of grippers and sheetfeeding, we buy from a vendor. 

Jo Francis Who is it?

Benny Landa Komori. They did the engineering and manufacturing, to our design.

Jo Francis Are you manufacturing the NanoInk yourself?

Benny Landa Yes, absolutely. And the blankets. We also ship the NanoInk as a concentrate and it’s then diluted in the press using the customer’s tap water. The machine deals with filtering and de-ionising it. This means a smaller carbon footprint and it reduces cost. The containers collapse to have almost no volume and almost no ink left in them, and you can dispose of them along with plastic beverage bottles. So, environmentally, the new technology is completely innocuous, it’s recyclable – just a totally green product.

Jo Francis What front-end software will be driving the presses? Or is it in-house?

Benny Landa There are two answers to that. The first answer is that we are working with leading front-end companies for front-end capability. We’re not going to develop our own, we develop only those things that we have to develop that you can’t buy elsewhere, and in this case you can buy it. 

The entry-level configuration of each of these products doesn’t have a fancy RIP. It behaves like a printing press. Instead of sending plates to the press you send a job.

Jo Francis But I could do variable information if I wanted to?

Benny Landa Yes of course. They are specified to be digital presses in all respects.

Jo Francis How much server power is it going to take to drive one of these presses doing variable data at maximum speed?

Benny Landa For most of the customers in this market, I don’t think that’s where they initially want to go. It’ll be an option they can add. For the most part, high-speed variable information isn’t where the mainstream customers need to be initially.

Jo Francis How do you plan to go to market?

Benny Landa We believe Nanography will become an industry-wide standard. In my experience of this and other industries, no standard became universally accepted when it was offered as a monopoly by one company. Xerox invented xerography, and it was alone for 15 years until Canon, Ricoh and others came into the marketplace. We plan to offer Nanography to a broad range of partners.

Jo Francis We’ve had news of your first licensing deals with Komori and Manroland Sheetfed. Can we expect more?

Benny Landa Yes. You can expect others to be in the market with Nanographic products [At Drupa, Landa also announced a tie-up with Heidelberg]. We think the important thing is not the competition; the important thing is giving the customers the ability to succeed. And customers like a choice. We have the greatest technology in the world. For it really to become a standard – and to do so quickly – we need to open it up. The fact is, customers today are sitting on their hands. They’re not buying offset presses. They see a decline in print, the emergence of digital media, so they think: “I’ll wait and see what happens.” We don’t want them to wait too long, so in our view the best thing is for multiple vendors to offer Nanography. We think this can have a profound impact on the industry.

Jo Francis Are you already talking to other potential partners, or will that start at Drupa?

Benny Landa We’re already talking to people who are very interested in pursuing this strategy. You might have thought that multiple press vendors wouldn’t want to be in the market if they don’t have sole rights to a product. That was the thinking years ago. That’s not the problem today. Their customers would love to buy from them, but they aren’t buying. That’s the problem everyone needs to solve: how to get customers to buy? 

I think we have a compelling value propo-sition and expect others will join us as partners. We plan for this to be embraced pretty broadly. Look at how many companies offer offset printing, or inkjet.

Jo Francis When will the presses be commercially available?

Benny Landa We’ll be placing presses in customers’ premises some time in the latter part of 2013. At Drupa, we’ll be taking letters of intent with deposits. We’ve already been deluged by customers who want the first machines, and this is a way for customers to secure their place and we’ll know who’s really serious. We can’t promise a specific date, but we will give them preference.

Jo Francis What do you need to work on between now and then?

Benny Landa We want to get rid of the bugs we have, and that’s just a matter of time, say, six to eight months. Secondly, production engineering and value engineering. And thirdly, test-ing. We want to put a lot of miles into these machines before we put them into custom-ers’ hands. I learned a few lessons at Indigo and I absolutely don’t want machines in customers’ hands until the customers are prepared and the machines are ready. All that takes time. But I’m patient.

Jo Francis What sort of thing is a bug at the moment?

Benny Landa Defects and flaws. But I’m an expert at flaws! The end-product last time [Indigo] is now the industry standard for high-quality output. Quality is something we understand. It’s not an added feature; it’s absolutely essential.

Jo Francis You say Nanography has “unmatched” cost-per-page. Can you give us some details about the pricing model for the equipment, the ink, etc? Will there be a click charge?

Benny Landa It will depend. In our case, we will most likely offer equipment and clicks. Customers like to have a choice.

Jo Francis Do you think inkjet – in some form – will become the dominant digital print technology in general? 

Benny Landa First of all I think Nanography is different from inkjet. You really can’t squirt water on to paper and expect it to be the solution for commercial print.

Jo Francis Your new presses will be competing with some of the models made by your old company. Does that feel a bit strange?

Benny Landa The market is so vast, and the playing field so huge, I don’t think people will be wringing their hands saying “Oh, do I buy a Landa or do I buy an Indigo?” because we play in totally different parts of the space. Every technology has its sweet spot, and no digital technology has yet been able to enter the sweet spot we’re talking about.

Jo Francis Benny, it’s fair to say you are renowned for the energy and passion you bring to all your ventures. At Drupa you will be hosting the five daily theatre presentations on the Landa stand, which sounds like some feat – where do you get your energy from?

Benny Landa You’re worried about me getting tired with five presentations a day? I jump out of bed every morning. I pinch myself. I have fantastic people around me, committed hard-working, passionate believers trying to do the impossible. And somehow the impossible becomes possible. It’s really fantastic and very exciting. Last time, with Indigo, I wanted to do everything myself. This time, to do this in my lifetime, I want to see it become ubiquitous. I think that’s the best thing for the industry and the best thing for us. 

NANO PRESSES: LANDA'S LINE-UP

SHEETFED PRESSES

Landa S5

Format B3

Target market Commercial printing

Max printing speed

· Single-sided: 11,000 sheets per hour (sph)

· Double-sided: 5,500sph

Colours 4–8

Resolution 600×600 / 1,200x600dpi

Weight 5,600 kg

Landa S7

Format B2

Target market Commercial print and publishing

Max printing speed

· Single-sided: 8,800 / 12,000sph

· Double-sided: 4,400 / 6,000sph

Colours 4–8

Resolution 600×600 / 1,200x600dpi

Weight 8,100kg

Landa S10

Format B1

Target market Commercial print, folding carton

Max printing speed

· Single-sided: 6,500 / 13,000sph

· Double-sided: 3,250 / 6,500sph

Colours 4–8

Resolution 600×600 / 1,200x600dpi

Weight 18,500kg

WEB PRESSES

Landa W5

Max substrate width 560mm

Target market Labels and flexible packaging

Max printing speed 

· Single-sided: 100/200 metres per minute 

· Double-sided: N/A

Colours 4–8

Resolution 600×600 / 1,200x600dpi

Weight 5,600kg

Landa W10

Max substrate width 1,020 mm

Target market Flexible packaging

Max printing speed 

· Single-sided: 100/200 metres per minute 

· Double-sided: N/A

Colours 4–8

Resolution 600×600 / 1,200x600dpi

Weight 9,800kg

Landa W50

Max substrate width 560mm

Target market DM, transpromo, publishing

Max printing speed 

· Single-sided: N/A

· Double-sided: 200 metres per minute

Colours 4–8

Resolution 600×600 / 1,200x600dpi

Weight 6,700kg

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