At its facilities in Canberra and Sydney, Opus can produce full-colour folded sections in collated book blocks, ready to be sewn, all of it inhouse.

Brigstocke says, “With this added advantage, our Sydney facility can manufacture case-bound product. Our new casing equipment is ideally suited to short runs.”

The new inkjets are bringing in work that other print companies have been printing offset. “Rather than just installing new for old, the colour inkjet CF (continuous feed) devices are replacing mono toner-based CF devices, they bring new abilities and therefore new revenue,” he says.

“A critical factor for us has been that the new systems must perform all tasks of the old equipment but also bring new opportunities. Our ability to produce folded sections in full colour means we can finish these sections using existing finishing equipment, saddle stitching, perfect binding, sewing, and so on. We can do variable data in full colour and folded to mailing size, straight from a reel of paper.”

Fast and variable SOS

SOS Print & Media in Sydney has invested in a Fuji Xerox FX2800 high-speed inkjet web press, which augments its Kodak Prosper XL press, two new HP Indigos, a Xeikon 5000 Digital Colour Press with Coater, a trio of Ricoh Pros, a Fuji Xerox Nuvera 288 Digital Production Publisher with saddle stitcher, a new iGen 150, and two Océ 6250s. The sheer versatility of its technology opens new digital opportunities for the Alexandria-based digital and offset print company.

Director Michael Schulz sees the FX2800 propelling SOS into faster turnarounds for digital colour, particularly in VDP – where the company can convert a lot of its black variable overprinting on four-colour offset shells to full-colour variable – and educational materials and high-end marketing.

Add to that the ability of the 2800 to print double-sided on coated and uncoated stock and its speedy rating of 200m/min, he says.

Schulz tells ProPrint that the FX2800 is being integrated into the production flow at SOS so that imposed, print-ready files can be switched between the company’s offset machines – a Heidelberg Speedmaster SM105, a GTO-Z and an Akiyama stacked Jprint press – and the FX2800 and other digital presses, depending on quantityand timeframe. He says, “In our digital colour you have three options – inkjet, toner or Indigo. All three have different quality and price levels, so you need that flexibility.”

He says the FX2800 “has made all the numbers we wanted it to achieve and we keep developing new applications.”

Schulz says the training curve for staff was relatively benign because much had been learned from bedding in its Kodak Prosper mono inkjet line. More recently installed is a cutsheet iGen 150 sheetfed machine which has sheetfed for lower volumes, and lower speeds, but fulfils higher quality requirements. He says the 2800 has its specific role at SOS and is filling that admirably.

The vendors

The FX2800 has enabled Fuji Xerox to enter the webfed inkjet race full-on, and it has further leveraged its prospects with the acquisition of French inkjet developer Impika, whose hardware is now part of the Fuji Xerox inkjet palette. The 2800 claims an output speed of 200mpm in double-sided full-colour work.

It is a system that packs full-colour VDP for work such as account statements and invoices to customers in banking and finance, life insurance, utility, securities and telecomms, in fact, anywhere lightning-fast turnarounds and personalised content are needed.

Aside from the speed, VDP capability and double-sided printing, the 2800’s main unit features a colour management tool to reduce the time required to adjust colours for image reproducibility, while also printing crisp text and numbers. A touch panel allows users to check system status, jobs printing and RIP performance.

Fuji Xerox acquired Impika last year; its parent company Fujifilm’s acumen in inkjet-head and ink manufacture syncs with Impika at the hardware end, as seen in the Impika iPrint 75.

Ricoh launched its latest flagship model, the Pro VC60000, at GraphExpo in Chicago, in addition to the industry-leading InfoPrint 5000, with overseas customers now set to receive their first units. The Ricoh Pro VC60000 uses the next generation drop-on-demand print heads and high-density pigment inks. According to Rene Kisselbach, Ricoh Australia’s national product and marketing manager for continuous feed, these new print heads are capable of physical resolutions up to 1200 x 1200dpi while producing near to 100,000 A4 images per hour.

Kisselbach says, “Using the Ricoh Pro VC60000’s dynamic variable-drop technology, customers can produce near-offset quality documents. A variety of offset-coated gloss stocks with output quality comparable to what is expected from offset today can be achieved with the use of the optional undercoat.”

Asked what printing sectors the Pro VC60000 and other high-speed jet webs can get their teeth into, Kisselbach says the options are versatile. He lists low circulating magazines, higher quality direct mail and catalogues, short-run offset and device consolidations as optimal for the VC60000.

Canon has come to the table with its Océ range of webfed lines, consisting of three main technology platforms: the Colorstream 3000, Jetstream, and Imagestream 3500 (to be released in 2015). Herbert Kieleithner, national marketing manager, production printing at Canon, sees web inkjet presenting a huge opportunity for printers in various segments, from books and newspapers to transaction and direct mail, packaging, magazines and catalogues.

“Due to the main technology and market benefits inkjet delivers, such as the high production speeds, lower production costs when compared to other digital devices to consistent high quality mono and full colour output, a printer has multiple prospects on how to use the technology,” he says.

And Tim Saleeba, sales director for Canon Professional Print in Australia, who attended the Global Canon Commercial Print Days conference in Poing, Germany, where the Imagestream 3500 platform was unveiled, says, “This technology will usher in a new era for digital printing in Australia, enabling customers to take high-speed inkjet technology from transactional printing and billing into high quality applications such as brochures, catalogues, short run magazines and marketing collateral.”

The march to near-offset quality is also reflected in Screen’s latest offering, its Truepress Jet 520HD, which Peter Scott, Screen Australia’s managing director, describes as “by far the highest quality product we offer to commercial printers.”

Only recently announced the official release is not until January 2015. However, two will be installed in European commercial shops before the end of 2014. Screen has built a reputation over the past 40 years for producing precision engineering, and Scott says this will be reflected in the new printer; he says, “The print samples seen are approaching offset quality.

“All new technologies are disruptive and high volume inkjet web is no exception. Initially the realm of transactional and direct marketing printers, we have seen it push into book production, newspapers, labels and light commercial. Until recently, the quality of image and choice of stocks have hindered the impact on commercial offset but this is about to change with the Truepress Jet 520HD (high definition) press.

“The opportunities for commercial printers will then multiply exponentially, to high quality brochures, catalogues, magazines, reports and heavier stock jobs up to 250gsm. Plates are eliminated and design data is sent directly to the press. Variable overprinting can be done in one pass. Single-person operation in a clean office-like environment makes workplaces much more pleasant.”

Folders for Océ high-speed webs

In a sign of the growing trend for traditional heavy iron manufacturers to team up with digital developers, manroland, arguably the world’s premier developer of web offset technology, is building folders for the Océ-branded high-speed inkjet web lines sold via manroland’s partner Canon Professional Print.

The move extends the manroland-Canon agreement under which the offset giant sells Océ Webstreams and Colorstreams to its customers.

Early on in the partnership, manroland Australasia invited visitors to the Canon stand at PacPrint 2013 to show how its finishing line integrates with Océ continuous-feed inkjet technology for digitally printed newspapers. To make its point, the demonstration, viewed by some of the industry’s heavy-hitters, featured comparisons of an Océ digital and a Roland web offset version of The Age newspaper.

Steve Dunwell, managing director of manroland Australasia, says, “I have never seen better quality [in digital] than the new inks that Océ has introduced. The densities of those inks are just superb. You will not see better quality on that from any newspaper. The newspaper people are very interested.”

And in 2011, when the manroland agreement was inked, and the dedicated folding system for the Océ machines – to be sold and serviced by manroland – was first raised, Dunwell told ProPrint, “It is Océ technology in the print engine and it can be our technology on the folder.

“Printers have the option of other finishing solutions, but we believe the technology we have put into this folder has been exceptional.”

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