Interview
Armando Mota, Director of Operations at Digidelta
The Digidelta company from Portugal, which specialises in the digital printing market, is planning to triple its production in a sustainable manner. We spoke to Armando Mota, its Director of Operations, about its expansion plans, its two main business areas (Decal and Mimaki) and its most innovative products, some of which will be on display at the next Graphispag fair.
– The company has announced a 3.4-million-euro investment in the DECAL 4.0 factory in Torres Novas. What does this investment consist of?
The investment involves giving well-deserved continuity to the coating project, with solvent-free adhesive technology, a slitter rewinder and a comprehensive automatic packaging line that encompasses all the handling phases. In other words, from the assembly of the packaging to ensuring that the material is fully palletised for shipping, either vertically or horizontally, depending on the customer’s needs. We should also take into account that it’s a totally robotised system.
– Digidelta has two business areas: its own Decal range and its partnership with Mimaki, for which Digidelta is the exclusive distributor on the Iberian mainland. Can you tell us about some of the main innovations in the two divisions?
ARM – DECAL is our own manufacturing brand, with which we export to over 60 countries, including Japan, the USA and Germany. DECAL produces a unique range of laminates, due to their high degree of adhesion to any kind of ink (especially UV), our PVC Free range (universal printing: solvent, latex, UV) and our Dot Matrix high-performance range.
MIMAKI is an exclusive distributor for the Iberian mainland of one of the largest and most prestigious brands of large-format digital printing equipment for the areas of visual communication and industrial and textile decoration, including sublimation and direct-to-film (DTF) printing. There’s a lot to highlight, but I’ll focus on three flagship products: the new MIMAKI TxF300 – DTF for mass production, definitely the most stable DTF equipment on the market, the 330 series, particularly the versatile MIMAKI UJV330 printing equipment with UV LED inks for mass production, which can be used for any kind of application, and, above all, the MIMAKI JFX200 with a two-year guarantee, clearly demonstrating the confidence that MIMAKI has in its own brand and its reliability.
– How has the introduction of DTF (direct-to-film) technology into the textile industry benefited you?
Set against the competition, MIMAKI is usually one of the first companies to bring out new products and display innovation when it launches equipment. We weren’t the first to arrive, but the peace of mind and productivity for each of our new customers when we sell them new MIMAKI DFT equipment is total. The user experience is also completely changed, with reductions in the number of failures, maintenance costs and downtime.
– Can you tell us about any other innovations you’re introducing with the aim of achieving greater efficiency and production capacity?
Some of the investments we’re making stem from our constant concern for the increasing number of changes and the technological evolution that the market is demanding, which is leading to the automation of all our packaging, a vital and essential factor in the current times.
We have an intermediate product storage system capable of performing the slitting for coils and improving service times, more and better than the rest of the market. All our production and finishing equipment incorporates surveillance and production support systems, making increasingly evolutionary use of AI in order to move forward and meet the demands of our customers and enabling us to assume higher production speeds and guarantee full quality control. In turn, we’re implementing an RFID tag system that will allow us to become even more efficient and rapidly prepare our orders for shipment. This is a highly important factor in their arrival at our customers’ homes in the shortest possible time.
– Digidelta recorded the best year in its history in terms of its turnover in 2023. What forecasts and assessments have you made for the current year? Which areas do you regard as those with the greatest business opportunities?
ARM-DECAL is undoubtedly the business area with the largest growth potential, not only because it’s the business with the largest presence around the world, but also due to the agreements we’ve reached to start in the fourth quarter of the year.
– What do you expect to achieve with your visit to Graphispag?
Bearing in mind that we’re going to witness two global launches of MIMAKI, the expectations are fairly high. We also hope that the fair will effectively succeed in attracting quite a few professionals from the industry, so that, in addition to displaying our new MIMAKI products and our renowned DECAL range, we can access funding through our Digirent and PrintPlan consumption agreements.
Cristina Benavides, Graphispag contributor
