Epson has held a ceremony to launch the construction of a new factory at its Hirooka Office in Shiojiri, Japan.
The new factory, scheduled to begin operations in the first half of the 2018 fiscal year, forms part of the company’s mid to long range strategic plans for its inkjet printer business. The company says the facility will roughly triple Epson’s current printhead production capacity.
Epson will also conduct research and development and look to drive advances in production engineering and other areas at the facility.
The new factory will handle the front-end manufacturing process for PrecisionCore printheads, the core devices in Epson’s business inkjet printers, high-capacity ink tank printers, and commercial and industrial printers. Epson says its high-capacity ink tank printers meet the needs of customers for low-cost prints. Launched in October 2010, sales of these products had reached as many as 15 million units worldwide as of June this year.
The company expects to see an accelerating shift from analogue printing to digital printing, generating a heavy demand for printers used for things such as signage, textiles and product labels.
