INTERVIEW TO JOSEP LLUÍS CHECA (Part 2 of 4)
Benefits for the industry
Printed electronics does not imply new large investments for the industry, because only small adaptations are required on existing machinery. Josep Lluís says: “We have a roll-to-roll machine that comes from the world of graphic arts that has been adapted to print Printed Electronics.” The adaptations are done mainly for the ink to be cured, placing heating devices at a certain distance and temperature.
Graphic arts companies have a great opportunity here to take advantage of their assets and facilities. With minor adaptations they may be capable to print new products that could sell at a higher price than common ink printing works. “It’s a quite disruptive innovation for them, probably too much for some of them. I always say that what determines the difficulty of a new business is whether the sales chain is highly altered or not, like the fact of establishing new different channels (for instance, from printing labels for wine bottles to print labels for boxes in the automotive industry)”, states Josep LLuís.
Another advantage of products moving to printed electronics based features is their supply chain, which will need minor or nonexistent modifications. “Printed Electronics features will be integrated downstream upon existing supply chains, and as said, new costs and investments will be attractively low.”
Concerning professional profiles for this industry, Josep Lluís Checa thinks that “we don’t think that it will appear radically new professional profiles. For example, we have an expert on common graphic arts printing techniques to carry out electronic printing processes.” So it seems more probable that current professionals will find new sectors to work in, taking advantage of their skills, rather than an emerging need for completely new professional profiles.
Approaching the market
From a technical development perspective, Josep Lluís Checa and many professionals from the sector believe that Printed Electronics is moving forward towards its standardization and to the research of new functionalities to be applied on products in a massive way. Particularly, he affirms that “In Printed Electronics, we are not talking about development of ex-novo products, but about existing products acquiring a new functionality such as thermal, light based, or sensor based.”
