Lake Suwa in and all its picturesque glory is the refreshing backdrop of the Epson Suwa Global offices in Japan. 

More than thirty media delegates from the Asean countries got a glimpse of the beautiful vista when they were feted to a tour of the Epson Suwa Global office in Suwa, Japan.  Lunch by the lake kicked off the 20th Anniversary celebration of their now legendary, Micro Piezo printer technology. 

Epson, a world leader in digital imaging and printing solutions commemorated this by hosting an exclusive press event that had us visiting the Matsumoto Minami Business Systems headquarters (where we got the chance to take a few snap shots of the historical Matsumoto Castle), Epson Hirooka Innovation Center and its Printing Division here we relived and traced the history of Epson. 

They also showcased their latest Epson ME Office series printers which culminated in giving the media guest a special preview of the upcoming Epson SurePress commercial label printer.

It was noteworthy to know the facts and illustrious history of the Micropiezo technology that’s behind the world-renowned performance of their  printers. 

Minoru Usui is currently president of the Seiko Epson Corporation and one of the original 80 engineers that built Epson.  He has shown strong leadership in realigning Epson as he seeks to create a company that is indispensable to our customers and society. 

Koichi Endo, who began his career at Seiko Epson Corporation in 1979, and has since built up a strong experience and expertise in product design, development of imaging and information related products and driving business strategies, has witnessed the birth and rapid evolution of modern inkjet printer industry and was deeply involved with the development of Epson’s proprietary printing technologies.

In 1990, Epson’s current president, Minoru Usui, led a team of Epson’s top 80 engineers to develop a new piezoelectric-based print head technology that would serve as the platform for all future Epson inkjet printers.

The team eventually produced the first Epson Micro Piezo print head that debuted in the Epson Stylus 800 that was launched in 1993. Since then, Epson has adopted the Micro Piezo print head for use in all its inkjet printer models, making the company the only one in the world to use piezoelectric print heads in its entire inkjet printer range – from the smallest personal photo printer, to the largest commercial press systems.

“When we started on the development of our Micro Piezo print head 20 years ago, I was able to envision the kind of world the technology was going to create,” said Usui.

“Today, we are most gratified to see the tremendous and unique benefits that the technology has been giving to our customers in terms of market-leading print quality, speed, cost effectiveness and resource savings.”