EXECUTIVE Q&A ─ Xaar
EXECUTIVE Q&A:
JOHN MILLS, CEO OF XAAR Talking about the new strategy, the new platform and the “new Xaar.” By Richard Romano
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ohn Mills became CEO of printhead manufacturer Xaar in 2019 after five years as CEO of Inca Digital. After a year or so of under-the-radar R&D and business planning, Xaar is now in the process of reinventing and rebranding itself, as well as launching the new ImagineX platform, which the company hopes will power Xaar products for the next 30 years. I spoke to John Mills about the new strategy, the new platform and the “new Xaar.” WhatTheyThink: We had last met at FESPA Berlin in 2018 when you were still at Inca Digital. What subsequently attracted you to Xaar? John Mills: Xaar is actually about four miles from Inca [in Cambridge, UK] and during my time at Inca Digital, we never bought a Xaar printhead. We were very aware of the fundamental benefits of Xaar printheads, but there were things in the technology which stopped us from using them. So when I came in [to Xaar], the opportunity was, what if we could actually fix the reasons why I wouldn’t have bought a Xaar printhead but retain all of the stuff that would make me buy a Xaar printhead? It’s really been the opportunity to do that. WTT: What were some of those reasons for and against using a Xaar head? JM: OEMs want to do a range of
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fluids, and Xaar couldn’t do aqueous ink. Wide-format graphics now is largely UV. Users need to be able to give the nozzle plate a good clean, and to do that you need to have a robust nozzle plate, which Xaar printheads didn’t have. Also, in terms of the speed of the printheads, we needed to make them faster and we needed to print at higher resolutions. The great thing is that we John Mills can actually fix all of those things, and I’m pretty excited that we’re going to be able to deliver a printhead that also retains all of the things that make Xaar technology uniquely beneficial. WTT: The last five years have been a bit of a challenge for Xaar. What led to the need for a new strategy? JM: I think a lot of it concerned some of the decisions around the business model, but also the focus that Xaar had on thin film. Xaar is a good-sized company, but to develop a MEMS head requires a significant financial undertaking. If you’re going to do it, you need to focus and make sure you throw everything at it. And that’s what Xaar did. It managed to develop the 5601 on a
WhatTheyThink - Printing News | January/February 2021
1/19/21 3:00 PM
