Building Bridges to Japan: Interview with Aki Ohno, Organizer of the Japan Inkjet Technology Trade Fair - drupa

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Soon the Japan Inkjet Technology Trade Fair will start in Tokyo. As a special partner of this exhibition, drupa interviewed the organizer Aki Ohno, who gave some information on his career and an overview of the trade fair and the Japanese printing market.

Being the world’s leading trade fair for the printing industry,drupais pleased to be a special partner of theJapan Inkjet Technology Trade Fair(JITF2022), which will take place for the first time this year. Aki Ohno, an independent consultant promotinginkjet technologyand business and head of the JITF2022, not only has a long career in theprinting industrybut also strong connections to Germany and drupa. As a Germanophile who has a very personal connection with Messe Duesseldorf’s home base country, he sees himself as a bridge between Germany and Japan and in this context has also made it his mission to support drupa – especially since we have declared sustainability to be one of the main topics at drupa 2024. After all, he sees inkjet technologies as an important building block for a sustainable future.

That’s why we couldn’t be more pleased that he agreed to an exclusiveinterviewwith drupa where he shared his thoughts not only on JITF2022 but also on the Asian printing market.

I have been working forKonica Minolta(KM) for 39 years, 22 years for thecopierand printing division, and 17 years for the inkjet division. My last title was that of an executive officer: the division director inkjet. Now, afterworking for KM, I am acting as an independent consultant, head of theOIJC (Ohno Inkjet Consulting), and a professor atYamagata University Inkjet Development Centerto promote the inkjet industry from both thebusinessandtechnologyside.

I see the worldwide inkjet industry as follows: The Japanese develop devices (inkjet heads), Europeans develop printing machines to use these, then the Chinese follow what the Europeans are doing. Japan is closed off, and the Japanese tend to stay in Japan and would not see what is happening overseas. We have eight inkjet head manufacturers, but the application is not as active as in Europe and China. I want to build abridgebetween Japan and overseas for the sleeping Japanese to wake up.

As explained before, I once worked for the copier and printer division at KM, the main exhibition of which was CeBIT. Meanwhile, CeBIT shifted from office printing tosoftwareandcommunicationtechnology, and drupa became the perfect alternative not only for KM but also forRicoh,Canon, etc., which wanted to expand their focus from just office printing to cover commercial printing.

Later, I moved from the copier and printing division to the inkjet division. I metMs. Sabine Geldermannin person at an inkjet-related conference and learned that drupa is also expanding from conventional offset printing to the toner-based digital printing technology to cover the inkjet technology as well. The header photo shows a picture of our first encounter

Japan Inkjet Technology Fair 2022 is not the typical trade fair for printing machines but more for its elements, including inkjet head,ink, material, parts, software, and integrators.

I am inviting CEOs and board member classes of major companies that are involved in the inkjet business such asEpson,Fujifilm, Konica Minolta,Komori, etc. In order to offer an opportunity for Ms.Geldermann and her team to warm up their long-term relations and friendship, I invited them together with some staff ofMesse Duesseldorf Japanto join the Japan Inkjet Technology Fair 2022.

I will also introduce many other companies that have not yet had a relationship with drupa to Sabine-san and theMesse Duesseldorfoffice to develop future business relations.

Inkjet is expanding its possibilities and opportunities in various directions. Replacing conventional printing has been the main direction so far. I would focus on somefuture-orienteddirections, including “digitalmanufacturing” and “additive manufacturing”, which are still new and on the way to growing.

Of course, I will not forget the big market to replace the existing market by emphasizing thesustainabilityinkjet could offer.

We have learned enough about the positive and negative sides ofonline events. In the early phase ofCOVID, we had no alternative to online meetings and events.

The positive point we found was that we could save the cost and time of traveling. We could have meetings or join events without emittingCO2by flights. I believe you know another 100 positive points from your own experiences.

The most negative points of online are the missing of “touch and feel”, “excitement and attraction” and “by chance”. Two and half years of a long period without “touch and feel”, “excitement” and “by chance”, we are all bored and eagerly expecting live events to happen.

I want to touch and feel the print sample, I want to hug old friends whom I may meet by chance at Messe, and I want to go toUerigein Altstadt to enjoy Altbier together! Only having online events is somehow “imbalanced”. We should smartly use both online and live events case by case.

Thanks to Aki Ohno for the inspiring insights and new knowledge about the Japanese printing industry and the Japan Inkjet Technology Trade Fair. If you would like to know even more about the printing expert, you can visit his website here:https://ohno-inkjet.com/?page_id=36346.