about us
Background info
i4inkjet Limited was set up as a registered company in 2020 to offer both vendors and users expert support for the development of new inkjet products, processes, applications and services. The business operates primarily in the digital printing industry, specialising in inkjet technology, products and markets. ‘Pivotal Inkjet Resources’ and ‘Directions’ are brand names of i4inkjet Limited which is directed by Dr. Adam Strevens.
In April 2020 Adam took on the production and editing of ‘Directions’ from Mike Willis, who initiated ‘Directions’ as part of his business Pivotal Resources Limited, over 20 years ago. Since then three new top class reviewers have joined the Directions team. Phil Bentley continues to cover the inkjet inks section of Directions with new reviewer, Mikala Baines, covering inkjet media, coatings, and 3D build materials. Adam covers the industry news and research topics sections and also some of the reviews on inkjet hardware topics along with Tony Cruz-Uribe and Dr. Mark Crankshaw. We wish Mike and his wife, Lorraine, all the best in their retirement and thank Mike for all his help, in particular with ensuring the continuation of ‘Directions’.
Meet the team
Dr. Adam
Strevens
Tony
Cruz-Uribe
Dr. Mark
Crankshaw
Dr. Phil
Bentley
Mikala
Baines
Dr. Adam Strevens – Inkjet printheads, systems & applications, substates – Adam is Owner/Director of i4inkjet Ltd. and editor and publisher of Directions since 2020. Adam is also Commercial Director at Neatjet Ltd., an ink delivery system manufacturer. Adam has focused on inkjet technology for over 15 years, having previously worked at Cambridge Display Technology Ltd (part of the Sumitomo Chemical Group) and Xaar Plc. For Directions Adam carries out the initial patent searching and filtering, and reviews the hardware, media, and industry news sections for each issue.
Tony Cruz-Uribe – Inkjet printheads, systems & applications – i4inkjet Ltd. is delighted to inform readers of Directions that Tony Cruz-Uribe (Inkjet Architecture LLC, USA) regularly reviews printhead technology apps. Tony and Adam work jointly on these topics, and have been sharing reviews covering piezo and thermal ink jet printheads mainly, since the start of 2020 and now Dr. Mark Crankshaw also contributes reviews to these areas. Tony has more than 70 inkjet related patents. Tony radiates great enthusiasm for inkjet technology, the physics especially. He most recently worked at Xaar on actuator specification, design and test. His time in the inkjet industry has spanned 40+ years and includes senior roles from the early days of inkjet at Pitney Bowes and DataProducts/Hitachi up to cutting-edge, thin film PIJ at HP. The wealth of experience and deep familiarity with inkjet IP, competitive analysis, and all aspects of printhead development, in particular that of the driver, fluidics, waveforms, and drop ejection, add to the critique provided in his reviews.
Dr. Mark Crankshaw – Inkjet printheads, systems & applications – Mark has worked almost his entire career in inkjet, and so now has 20+ years’ experience in the field, including a number of patents, conference publications and book chapters. Having previously worked at Xaar plc on everything from actuator development and performance to application development, and at Cambridge Display Technology on print process development, he founded Advanced Inkjet Solutions Ltd to provide consultancy and support in all those areas. Mark graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA in Natural Sciences and continued for his PhD in Materials Science on ceramic reinforcements for metal-matrix composites. Mark recently joined the review team and covers inkjet hardware and imaging topics for Directions along with Tony and Adam.
Dr. Phil Bentley – Inkjet ink technology – Phil is responsible for ink technology reviews for Directions.He is currently Associate Director at Cambridge Consultants. In the past, Phil was Head of Fluids at Tonejet Limited and was previously CTO at Conductive Inkjet Technology Limited, responsible for a number of multi-disciplinary projects. Phil has been involved with all forms of inkjet technology, has developed a wide range of products for a variety of “difficult” applications and is the inventor of a direct metal printing technology. He graduated from Loughborough University of Technology in 1995 with a BSc in Chemistry with Polymer Science Technology. Phil has a PhD from Sheffield University, on the synthesis and characterisation of liquid crystalline electroluminescent polymers for polarised display applications.
Mikala Baines – Inkjet substrates, coatings & 3D build materials – Mikala joined the Directions team in 2023 and authors the substrates, coatings and 3D build materials section of Directions, as well as being the key Business Development Manager for Directions. She has 17 years of experience in the printing/coatings industry starting as an R&D formulator of piezo inkjet radiation-curable inks at Fujifilm Specialty Ink Systems, UK. Her focus later moved to specialising in electron beam hardware and applications during her time as Applications Specialist/Business Development Manager at ebeam Technologies, Switzerland. Both roles spanned a variety of applications for inkjet technologies with the larger portion focused on food packaging. Mikala holds a BSc (Hons) in chemistry with The Open University and now works in the Digital Printing department at ETA SA, a company of the Swatch group.