Industrial + Specialty Printing

The gee-whiz factor used to reign in the field of industrial and specialty printing. That’s not the case any longer.

By Gail Flower

Once you begin to focus on a topic, such as industrial printing, the more related areas become evident. But that may be a function of tuning in to a frequency and seeing how much this high-growth area has entered the news, the printing market, and the conference area.

One instance of concentrated focus comes to mind immediately. A few years ago I hired an editor who had only a short background in the field of electronics and who had formerly specialized in commercial communications, not scientific writing for magazines. She asked the most elemental questions, such as, “Why is everything so small, and why is that important?” followed by “So what is an integrated circuit, and why should I care?” and ending with “You really have to be terse in these articles and get to the point.” Needless to say, I spent hours taking apart old cell phones, calculators, and cheap electronic devices just to make the basics understandable. Electronics debris littered the office.

By the end of the first week when it all began to gel, her comments turned to, “Rats, now I cannot even read supermarket trash magazines without finding errors in style, spelling, and facts—even though they’re not about electronics.” She would see mistakes in headlines, such as “Paltrow Gives Birth to Baby Apple,” “Greenpeace Loses Dolphins Battle,” or “Crisis at Potato Disease Farm” and start to think that she could write a better title. Now this same editor heads her own firm doing electronics writ-ing and analysis.

The same intensity is growing in industrial and specialty printing, where every day sparks with news. For example, DuPont announced that it is expanding its portfolio of silver conductive inks formulated for use in printed electronics products just this week, noting that touchscreen technology, OLED, and thin-film photovoltaics are areas of high growth. According to industry estimates, the printed-electronics market is expected to reach $10 billion by 2012. The touchscreen-module market is forecasted to grow to $6.4 billion by 2013, and the market for OLED lighting is expected to reach $6.7 billion in 2014. DuPont MCM plans to build its portfolio for these markets.

There are lots of companies in the materials area that see growth. One example is Clinton, NY-based Indium Corp., which has a wide knowledge of materials science and a growing presence in supplying silver conductive ink to the solar market. The gee-whiz factor used to reign in the field of industrial and specialty printing. That’s not the case any longer. Perhaps it’s because the dollar symbols have lured in a greater number of entrepreneurs. Perhaps we have just realized the practical side—the focused ingenuity of the printing trade with the right materials and equipment. Whatever the impetus, the excitement continues to promote growth in this market, especially the narrower you focus on it. It doesn’t take a finely tuned antenna to detect it either.