As part of the announcement of its 2011 results Agfa has announced it will not continue the development of the :Dotrix fixed head single pass system. While the installed base of equipment is not in the public domain, DL&P is aware of many systems used in labels, flexible packaging and carton production (together with other graphics applications) across the world. The company will continue to support the existing user base, certainly for several years, but there have been lay offs at the Ghent manufacturing site.
This decision must have been difficult for Agfa as the company has invested heavily in inkjet with the wide and grand format machines and the high volume MPress, a hybrid screen and inkjet machine that is gaining ground.
Sadly the company has decided that the sales prospects for :Dotrix, and the likely volumes of ink sales are not enough to fund the next stage of development that would entail a significant change of the heads and control systems. Upgrading the Toshiba Tec heads that have been around for more than a few years to provide quality and productivity boosts to match the performance of competing systems would be very expensive, a path the company has decided not to follow.
