Emerging Technologies – Digital Printing

At the Tax Stamp & Traceability Forum™ (TSTF), in May 2022, I presented a paper on the emerging technologies that I believe will have significant impact on the tax stamp business sector. From this came an article in Tax Stamp & Traceability News™ in June summarising the threats and opportunities from these. The aim of this article is to take a deeper look into one of these technologies – digital printing.

Digital security printing emerged as a key theme at TSTF 2022. A pre-conference workshop, ‘Security Printing in the Digital Age’, set the scene, providing an introduction to high-end digital print equipment and its use for security documents. However, the conference provided much more on this topic that became the foundation for this article.

Digital printing for tax stamp production

Digital printing is already becoming important for tax stamps and, whether in the form of inkjet or toner printing, is likely to become even more so. This will have the effect of opening the door to new players in the printing world, which can be both a threat and an opportunity. As Gerben van Wijk of Luminescence Sun Chemical Security (and incoming Chair of the International Tax Stamp Association) noted, digital is ‘a world to discover’.

Xeikon and dry toner printing

Dry toner (sometimes known as electrophotographic, or EP printing) has a long history in the production of secure documents, from certificates to visas and passports. At TSTF 2022, a presentation from the Authentication Solution Providers Association noted the current use of dry toner printing for serialisation to facilitate traceability. However, the best example of dry toner printing from our perspective is the solution provided by Xeikon.

Xeikon have what is probably the most established model of digital printing for the production of entire tax stamps and their use was reviewed in the Reconnaissance International publication ‘Tax Stamps & Traceability: A Market Analysis and Technical Update’, in 2020. The report notes the use of a Xeikon 5-colour digital press using Agfa Graphics’ Arziro Design security software to produce the tobacco stamps for Belgium and Luxembourg. This partnership model between printer and software provider is now being repeated elsewhere, and could well be the model for the future.

HP Indigo Secure and LEP printing 

HP was an early entrant into the digital printing press market for commercial applications with their Indigo Liquid Electrophotography (LEP) technology. As HP Indigo Secure, they have produced a solution that embraces specific security features such as blue and yellow fluorescent electroinks with secure manufacturing and distribution protocols. The Tax Stamp & Traceability report notes that this extends to spot colour, colour shifting, MCR and tagged electroinks too.

One of these systems is installed in Nepal for the production of tax stamps and other secure documents. HP Indigo Secure is working with the same model as Xeikon/Agfa as they have established a collaboration with Jura on a secure solution. As noted above, this integration into a secure workflow through collaboration could be a great model for secure documents in general.

Komori and inkjet printing

As noted in the paper on emerging technologies, the establishment of digital printing for tax stamp production opens the door to new entrants both in terms of technologies and suppliers. One technology to watch for here for tax stamp and traceability solutions is inkjet, again already established in the commercial print world. And one interesting supplier of this technology is Komori.

Komori is already well established in the field of secure documents due to its presence in banknote printing. The Komori Impremia IS29s press is targeted as a replacement for offset presses with a 4 colour UV inkjet from Konica Minolta heads. One aspect of commercial use of inkjet is that solutions are available with 4+ heads, leading to a plethora of potential solutions (as featured in the Reconnaissance International publication ‘Printing Beyond Colour: Commercial Innovations for Security Print’, in 2021).

So where could this go?

Digital printing continues to evolve and with this comes further opportunities. To return to Komori as an example, their Impremia NS40 press features a Nanographic Printing® System with 4 and 7 colour options. This printing technology could provide an interesting option for tax stamp production.

This evolution is not limited to digital printing – there is a hybrid space where both analogue and digital solutions combined may well find a place in tax stamp and traceability solutions. Again, Komori is well placed in this regard with its Seria gravure offset and screen-printing technologies, which are routes to technologies such as printed electronics. Looking forward, we should take a broader view of printing by thinking of it as material deposition, which effectively means taking a material and putting it down on something.

There are numerous technologies in this field which I believe are going to make a difference to what we do. One example in inkjet comes from Notion Systems, with prototyping solutions that enable customers to explore multiple inkjet head types in the same print system.

Both printed electronics and material deposition open up further opportunities for tax stamp and traceability solutions, especially in the area of physical/digital linkage. The ability to link a physical object such as a stamp, label, or direct mark into the digital space through devices such as a smartphone is a persuasive and growing field. As one of our emerging technologies it is an area we should explore further.