Dr. Rene Pankoke

LIGNA 2019 is all about Digitalization. Can you tell us about your new showcases with respect to Digital Printing?

We have a lot of new features to offer in Digital Printing. The best known with over 40 digital printing lines in production is the JUPITER Digital Printing Line. This JUPITER Digital Printing Line is a UV-inkbased system. For this system we have also developed our digital structuring. This technology is called ‘DLE’ – Digital Lacquer Embossing. It was subject to an intense development process for the last five years. Now It’s been patent granted for Hymmen. The Hymmen digital printing as well as the digital structuring (DLE) can be used for furniture, for flooring, for LVT flooring as well as traditional laminate based flooring.

What makes JUPITER series so popular? Tell us more about the new digital finishes for the furnishing industry?

The JUPITERdigital printing lines are the ones that are in the wood-based industry for the longest time. Hymmen has started more than ten years ago, so we have more than a decade of experience in optimizing the print quality. Most important is colour stability and reliability. Normal digital printing can be done by a lot of people: For the batch size one you can easily get a nice and sharp image. But if you really want to have a stable production, high reliability and color stability, this is what the Hymmen JUPITER Digital Printing Lines stand for.

What are the newest features we can expect from Hymmen’s Double Belt Press Line series? Tell us about IsoSeries-

The Hymmen Double Belt Press is our second biggest product line .As you may know we have more than 200 installations worldwide. We always want to increase the efficiency of the lines, so new developments are usual. One of the latest is called super silent sealing. We have developed a special sealing which makes the whole press extremely silent and stable in production. Another recent development in this area is the embossed in register production: Thanks to the structured belts in the Double Belt Press the HPL/CPL is structured synchronous to the decor in a continuous production process.

Coming to LIGNA, what are the major attractions you are showcasing here?

We are showcasing on the one hand, the already discussed Hymmen JUPITER Digital Printing Line. On the other hand, the newest attraction that we are showing here, is the next ‘Planet’ – we call it ‘SATURN’. So, the Hymmen SATURN Digital Printing Line is our new development with water-based inks for decor paper. It can be used for producing decor paper at the customers´ site. Then this paper can be impregnated and e.g. used in short cycle presses for furniture, for flooring and other applications.

Lastly, what are the plans going forward in 2019?

I think the most important issue for the near future is launching the new SATURN Digital Printing Line. This is a co-operation with Ricoh, so, Hymmen and Ricoh are offering the digital printing industry – especially the decor digital printing industry – a new product, a completely new technology for décor printing.