Quantum Ink Company

January 12, 2024

Innovation, Service Are Keys to Quantum Ink’s Success

Quantum Ink is a family-owned company started in 1997 and currently owns and operates out of four buildings located in Louisville, Kentucky. The newest of these four buildings only began fully manufacturing this year in late spring and was built to create additional capacity and the ability to better service customers. In addition to the corporate headquarters, there are technicians scattered throughout the Midwest who work remotely to turn around projects for customers and potential customers. Quantum employees also spend a great deal of time on press servicing ink and giving printers hands-on assistance. Quantum Ink is striving to utilize ink as a tool to create consistent quality efficiently at printing operations through the “Exponential Theory of 98/2.” Through training, pinpoint ink quality and culture, 98% of a printed product’s cost (substrate, downtime, etc.) can be positively affected with the 2%–5% overall contribution ink typically factors into the overall cost. Quantum Ink president Adam Bland stated, “Our overall culture, dedication, and great leadership will make us successful short term and long term, in part by not losing sight of what made us successful in our past or has made us successful to this point by maintaining our integrity. As a result, our management teams see great growth opportunities for Quantum Ink in the coming years.”

Much has changed in recent years, but Quantum Ink continues to emphasize what has brought them success over the years. The vision of the company and what it wants to be to the flexographic industry are very clear and have come to fruition specifically in the past several years. For ink companies to continually thrive, they must be attentive to their customers’ needs, whether it is providing excellent technical service or developing quality new products. Adam Bland noted that Quantum Ink puts tremendous emphasis on innovation and service. “I think you could easily say 50%, or more, of what we are doing daily is dedicated to innovation and service, service being the larger portion of that,” Bland said. Just in the past year, Quantum Ink has formulated at least eight very different and unique ink systems for the flexographic market, some of which are for new markets, some to create a higher quality end product, some to improve efficiency for customers. In addition, Quantum Ink has tech teams out in printing facilities nearly every day of the week either training, solving problems, helping customers maintain or obtain new business, or sustaining a culture around ink that makes it the valuable tool it can be. With over 25,000 formulations, ink can be made for specific customers, specific presses and whatever variables are needed from an ink perspective to make sure that ink works for exactly what it needs to be formulated for. Utilizing many years of lab and field work, Quantum has begun grinding pigments internally and plans to continue expanding that portion of the operation. This allows Quantum Ink even greater capabilities to meticulously tailor products to customer specifications. Quantum’s product lines have grown exponentially over the past years, and they are now supplying inks to nearly every piece of the water-based flexographic market. Quantum Ink is focused on the packaging market, including corrugated/folding carton, flexible packaging, pouch lamination, paper packaging, surface print film, envelopes, high-performance coatings, and many specialty products for unique applications.

While the future is uncertain, Quantum Ink is able to positively make strides forward in a very defined direction. There is a unified plan in place to manage the growth rate while maintaining the root integrity the company was built upon. The focus will be to continue finding and training new talent, especially for the technical service portion of our company, so that as the company grows, customers’ needs in all shapes and forms are not neglected. Over the past four years, Quantum has aligned itself with several different organizations and universities, geared toward expanding growth and knowledge in the market as well as assisting others with long learned expertise. In short, Quantum Ink has worked over the past 26 years to create a company focused upon stronger, more sustainable, and higher quality ink options. As the second generation of ownership moves forward, there is never an instance when the needs of the customer are neglected.