01
Printing is only part of the solution
True ROI comes from the entire production cell — success is a manufacturing system, not a stand-alone printer.
Milestone · 100th Single-Pass DTO System
The First 100.
What forty years of pad printing and 100 single-pass installations taught us.
In May 2026, EPS shipped its 100th single-pass direct-to-object inkjet system. The next 100 will scale faster than the first — because the first 100 taught us six things about delivering production decoration at scale. This is what we learned.
100+
Single-pass DTO systems shipped
400+
Multi-pass systems shipped
3,500+
Pad systems shipped
40
Years engineering decoration
Six lessons from the first 100
What 100+ single-pass deployments taught us.
When EPS shipped its 100th single-pass DTO system, the engineering and applications teams sat down to capture what we'd actually learned about delivering production decoration at scale. The first lesson is the headline. The other five make it work.
02
Automation drives most of the ROI
Labor reduction is the heart of the digital transformation. Automate loading, pretreatment, inspection, and unloading — that's where the payback lives.
03
Application knowledge is essential
Analog customers don't know what questions to ask. Establishing the real requirements upfront is the difference between a delivered system and a returned machine.
04
Pre-treatment and ink = 50% of success
Pre-treatment is non-negotiable almost 100% of the time. Be prepared to test a lot of ink and pre-treatment combinations before the line ships.
05
Color management is the new art
Analog customers are used to spot colors. Color management on non-flat objects under production conditions is its own discipline.
06
24/7 service is a must, not a nice-to-have
These cells run inside 24/7 manufacturing environments. If the printer is down, the factory is down. Lifetime support isn't marketing — it's the deal.
Three pillars for the next 100
The future is about scaling, not printing.
High quality, production-speed direct-to-object printing is already a reality. The real drivers for scaling up — the three things that decide whether DTO behaves like proven industrial equipment — are below.
01
End-to-end automationAutomation is the engine.
- Labor savings through robotics
- Inline inspection & reject handling
- Automated changeovers for SKU agility
02
Industrial reliabilityUptime becomes the product.
- 98–99% uptime expectations
- Predictive maintenance
- Stable color & drop placement
- Scrap rate under 1%
03
Expanded application = TAM expansionApplication is the premise.
- Printhead innovation for new geometries
- Advanced ink chemistry — sustainability & movement
- Texture, irregular shapes & multi-surface objects
Be one of the next 100.
If you're evaluating digital decoration at production scale, the six lessons above are also the six questions worth asking on your line. A 30-minute call with an EPS engineer is the best place to start.