Functional printing in Freiburg

In Freiburg, the tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Con­ti­nen­tal bun­dles its exper­tise in all aspects of func­tion­al print­ing in a tech­nol­o­gy cen­ter with state-of-the-art machin­ery. The cen­ter­piece is a machine spe­cial­ly devel­oped for func­tion­al print­ing. It enables the use of numer­ous print­ing process­es and process­es a wide vari­ety of mate­ri­als — from arti­fi­cial leather to met­al, from paper to rub­ber. To date, the com­pa­ny has invest­ed around 2.5 mil­lion euros in its site in Baden-Württemberg.
In func­tion­al print­ing, dif­fer­ent appli­ca­tions are pro­duced using print­ing process­es. Pro­to­types of intel­li­gent prod­ucts are cre­at­ed at the cen­ter for func­tion­al print­ing tech­nolo­gies. By inte­grat­ing func­tions and asso­ci­at­ed ser­vices, they open up new poten­tial and pave the way for tech­nolo­gies of the future. “They allow pre­dic­tive main­te­nance con­cepts through to auto­mat­ic order­ing process­es for spare parts in Indus­try 4.0, but they are also the basis for new types of vehi­cle inte­ri­ors,” explains Dr. Erhard Barho, who heads the func­tion­al sur­face solu­tions unit at Continental.
 

All printing processes, materials and finishing techniques in one place

Print­ing and process spe­cial­ists as well as experts in cir­cuit design are work­ing togeth­er in Freiburg to devel­op and test process­es for inte­grat­ing these func­tions into prod­ucts for the print­ing and pack­ag­ing indus­try, for exam­ple, as well as for the auto­mo­tive industry.
 

“We are con­cen­trat­ing all print­ing process­es, all mate­ri­als and all fin­ish­ing tech­niques in one place. Until now, cus­tomers had to look for dif­fer­ent part­ners for the indi­vid­ual tasks and coor­di­nate them. We now offer every­thing from a sin­gle source in terms of the future of the print­ing industry.”
— Head of the Cen­ter, Armin Senne

 
“For us, the start­ing point for devel­op­ing new tech­ni­cal appli­ca­tions is cus­tomer ben­e­fit,” says Barho. Renowned coop­er­a­tion part­ners help here: for exam­ple, the cen­ter is locat­ed in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty of the Fraun­hofer Insti­tute. The long-stand­ing coop­er­a­tion with print­ing forme spe­cial­ists such as Janosch­ka and Flex-Punkt is also being con­tin­ued and expand­ed here. The focus here is on top­ics relat­ing to the future of pack­ag­ing, such as smart pack­ag­ing with touch dis­plays and biosen­sor tech­nol­o­gy. Food pack­ag­ing that stores the time of first open­ing is also conceivable.