David Savastano, Editor12.22.15
In 1983, International Imaging Materials, Inc. (IIMAK) was formed in Amherst, NY, to capture the emerging thermal transfer ribbons (TTR) market just as the AIDC (Automatic Identification Data Capture) industry emerged.
While IIMAK has become a leader in the TTR market, the company has branched out into other growing fields during the past 32 years. Headquartered in Amherst, NY, IIMAK has manufacturing and sales facilities in Europe, Mexico and Brazil, as well as 1,000 employees worldwide.
In 2013 IIMAK chose to capitalize on its core competencies in ink development, manufacturing and distribution to enter adjacent markets such as digital inks for industrial inkjet and specialty printing and graphics.
“Our core TTR business has provided solid growth but the market size is not large enough to support our growth goals,” said Doug Wagner, IIMAK’s president and CEO.
“We’ve grown to be one of the world’s largest developers and manufacturers of thermal transfer ribbons, and have diversified into the broader consumable imaging supplies market offering inkjet inks, direct thermal films and other related products,” said Scott Surma, VP, new business development for IIMAK. “We have a laser focus on customer care, and offer unique services that help our customers grow business and simplify processes.”
This has led to two key acquisitions in the inkjet space in 2015. In June, IIMAK acquired American Ink Jet Corporation, now known as American Ink Jet by IIMAK INKS, which specializes in aqueous inkjet inks for wide format and desktop printers. In December, IIMAK acquired Talon Industries, a specialist in continuous inkjet (CIJ) fluids, equipment and maintenance for coding and marking applications.
Prior to the AIJ and Talon Industries acquisitions, IIMAK acquired Specialty Ink Company in July 2013 to produce dye and pigmented inks for hard to mark surfaces including plastic, metal, and rubber; a drop-on-demand (DOD) inkjet ink portfolio from Graphic Controls in May 2013; and a binary CIJ portfolio from Collins Inkjet in November 2014.
Surma said that IIMAK is always looking to grow its business by developing new markets.
“One of IIMAK’s strategic pillars is growth through diversification, and American Ink Jet (AIJ) was sought out as an accelerator to these growth plans,” said Surma. “We’ve been friends with AIJ’s founder, Mike Andreottola, for many years and foresee opportunities for growth in wide format printing. We initially entered the digital inks arena via industrial inkjet due to how well it aligns with our core competencies and sales channels, and AIJ is another case of the same whereby we’re already serving the specialty printing, graphics, and signage industry.
“AIJ provides a solid foundation of aqueous-based eco-friendly digital ink technologies and we’ll now leverage IIMAK’s wider range of resources to bring new products to market faster for our customers,” he added. “Notably, we do in-house dispersions that offer us flexibility in design and faster turnarounds. We disperse well over a million pounds per year of pigment into a variety of ink types (solvent, oil, aqueous, UV, hot-melt) whereby many of our dispersions have particle sizes below 100nm.”
Printed electronics is another market that IIMAK has successfully entered, as its Metallograph® thermal transfer technology offers a significant advantage over analog and other digital conductive printing methods as it requires no drying, sintering or plating to achieve maximum conductivity.
“Our best successes are coming from IIMAK’s pioneering development of aluminum (Al) and copper (Cu) thermal transfer ribbons (sold under the Metallograph brand) for printing conductive traces onto flexible substrates,” said Surma. “It’s fully functional directly after printing. Metallograph can be used for printing sensor electrode arrays, RFID antennas, flex circuits, heaters, radar reflecting codes, backplanes, batteries and capacitors.
“With a low cost per unit area, Metallograph effectively competes with etched Cu circuits as well as silver screen inks,” Surma added. “Metallograph can be printed by many off-the-shelf thermal transfer printers. Metallograph Cu is compatible with soldering processes so long as it is printed on a heat resistant substrate. Electrical connections can also be made with conductive epoxy inks, conductive tapes and the like.”
New products and R&D are critical to any company’s future, and IIMAK is no exception. American Ink Jet by IIMAK INKS is focusing on new ink sets, releasing a new range of affordable, plug and play inks for Canon imagePROGRAF large format printers and a compatible ink set for the HP Z6200 wide format printer, while IIMAK is also actively developing new inks for other markets.
“Customers are primarily benefiting from new product introductions,” said Surma. “We recently introduced SureScanII, a pour-over compatible inkjet ink for ScanTrue II, that is designed for high resolution case coding. We’ve also introduced zero-VOC DOD inks, as well as customer-specific customized ink formulations, and many of our digital ink distributors have found IIMAK’s TTR technology to be an opportunity for add-on sales.”
Surma said that another key to IIMAK’s success is its focus on customer service, adding that IIMAK was the only manufacturer in its class that was voted a Best Channel Vendor in 2015 by Business Solutions Magazine.
“We have the most flexible private labeling programs in the industry with same day shipping,” Surma added. “We also have Inside IIMAK, an extensive online portal where customers can access customized product and order information, as well as marketing tools and training.”
Wagner said that IIMAK’s growth into new markets is working well, and the company will continue to expand in the coming years.
“We’ve been successful with our diversification growth over the last few years, but we believe we’re just scratching the surface,” Wagner concluded. “We will continue to employ a balanced investment strategy to support our core business and diversification platforms from both an organic and acquisitive perspective.”
While IIMAK has become a leader in the TTR market, the company has branched out into other growing fields during the past 32 years. Headquartered in Amherst, NY, IIMAK has manufacturing and sales facilities in Europe, Mexico and Brazil, as well as 1,000 employees worldwide.
In 2013 IIMAK chose to capitalize on its core competencies in ink development, manufacturing and distribution to enter adjacent markets such as digital inks for industrial inkjet and specialty printing and graphics.
“Our core TTR business has provided solid growth but the market size is not large enough to support our growth goals,” said Doug Wagner, IIMAK’s president and CEO.
“We’ve grown to be one of the world’s largest developers and manufacturers of thermal transfer ribbons, and have diversified into the broader consumable imaging supplies market offering inkjet inks, direct thermal films and other related products,” said Scott Surma, VP, new business development for IIMAK. “We have a laser focus on customer care, and offer unique services that help our customers grow business and simplify processes.”
This has led to two key acquisitions in the inkjet space in 2015. In June, IIMAK acquired American Ink Jet Corporation, now known as American Ink Jet by IIMAK INKS, which specializes in aqueous inkjet inks for wide format and desktop printers. In December, IIMAK acquired Talon Industries, a specialist in continuous inkjet (CIJ) fluids, equipment and maintenance for coding and marking applications.
Prior to the AIJ and Talon Industries acquisitions, IIMAK acquired Specialty Ink Company in July 2013 to produce dye and pigmented inks for hard to mark surfaces including plastic, metal, and rubber; a drop-on-demand (DOD) inkjet ink portfolio from Graphic Controls in May 2013; and a binary CIJ portfolio from Collins Inkjet in November 2014.
Surma said that IIMAK is always looking to grow its business by developing new markets.
“One of IIMAK’s strategic pillars is growth through diversification, and American Ink Jet (AIJ) was sought out as an accelerator to these growth plans,” said Surma. “We’ve been friends with AIJ’s founder, Mike Andreottola, for many years and foresee opportunities for growth in wide format printing. We initially entered the digital inks arena via industrial inkjet due to how well it aligns with our core competencies and sales channels, and AIJ is another case of the same whereby we’re already serving the specialty printing, graphics, and signage industry.
“AIJ provides a solid foundation of aqueous-based eco-friendly digital ink technologies and we’ll now leverage IIMAK’s wider range of resources to bring new products to market faster for our customers,” he added. “Notably, we do in-house dispersions that offer us flexibility in design and faster turnarounds. We disperse well over a million pounds per year of pigment into a variety of ink types (solvent, oil, aqueous, UV, hot-melt) whereby many of our dispersions have particle sizes below 100nm.”
Printed electronics is another market that IIMAK has successfully entered, as its Metallograph® thermal transfer technology offers a significant advantage over analog and other digital conductive printing methods as it requires no drying, sintering or plating to achieve maximum conductivity.
“Our best successes are coming from IIMAK’s pioneering development of aluminum (Al) and copper (Cu) thermal transfer ribbons (sold under the Metallograph brand) for printing conductive traces onto flexible substrates,” said Surma. “It’s fully functional directly after printing. Metallograph can be used for printing sensor electrode arrays, RFID antennas, flex circuits, heaters, radar reflecting codes, backplanes, batteries and capacitors.
“With a low cost per unit area, Metallograph effectively competes with etched Cu circuits as well as silver screen inks,” Surma added. “Metallograph can be printed by many off-the-shelf thermal transfer printers. Metallograph Cu is compatible with soldering processes so long as it is printed on a heat resistant substrate. Electrical connections can also be made with conductive epoxy inks, conductive tapes and the like.”
New products and R&D are critical to any company’s future, and IIMAK is no exception. American Ink Jet by IIMAK INKS is focusing on new ink sets, releasing a new range of affordable, plug and play inks for Canon imagePROGRAF large format printers and a compatible ink set for the HP Z6200 wide format printer, while IIMAK is also actively developing new inks for other markets.
“Customers are primarily benefiting from new product introductions,” said Surma. “We recently introduced SureScanII, a pour-over compatible inkjet ink for ScanTrue II, that is designed for high resolution case coding. We’ve also introduced zero-VOC DOD inks, as well as customer-specific customized ink formulations, and many of our digital ink distributors have found IIMAK’s TTR technology to be an opportunity for add-on sales.”
Surma said that another key to IIMAK’s success is its focus on customer service, adding that IIMAK was the only manufacturer in its class that was voted a Best Channel Vendor in 2015 by Business Solutions Magazine.
“We have the most flexible private labeling programs in the industry with same day shipping,” Surma added. “We also have Inside IIMAK, an extensive online portal where customers can access customized product and order information, as well as marketing tools and training.”
Wagner said that IIMAK’s growth into new markets is working well, and the company will continue to expand in the coming years.
“We’ve been successful with our diversification growth over the last few years, but we believe we’re just scratching the surface,” Wagner concluded. “We will continue to employ a balanced investment strategy to support our core business and diversification platforms from both an organic and acquisitive perspective.”