Fuji Xerox launches Iridesse six-colour

Fuji Xerox is launching a new toner-based digital printer, the six-colour Iridesse Production Press, offering speeds of 120ppm with substrates up to 400gsm, print resolution of 2,400dpi, metallic inks, and high-levels of automation.

The company says the high speed Iridesse offers printers new levels of flexibility and versatility, and will enable them to increase their product range for the market.

Steve Green, newly appointed executive general manager, Sales, Fuji Xerox Australia, says, “We are operating in an environment where we need to empower our customers by providing them with solutions that will ensure they are able to push the boundaries in their field and reach their customers in a way they have not been able to before.

“In today’s competitive environment, customers want more than an outcome. They want solutions for their challenges. Achieving this requires working with experts who understand these needs and provide end-to-end solutions with quality services. It is here we see the role of the print provider evolve. Fuji Xerox Australia foresees the print professional becoming a consultant – an expert that delivers insight and solutions instead of a printed product. But this transition requires a new way of working and premium tools that enable a true beginning to end, simplified solution.

"It is called the Iridesse Production Press.

“Fuji Xerox has changed the technology that underpins the solution to ensure output is bolder, crisper and more premium than what has been achieved previously. The Iridesse is taking us into a new field of relevance for print.  It is a press that can meet today’s needs and provide relevance into the future in terms of versatility, flexibility and industry leading quality.”

Able to print specialty colours including metallic with a single pass, the Iridesse houses up to two additional specialty dry inks of gold, silver, clear and white.

The newly launched print engine enables CMYK dry ink layers to be processed on top of the special dry ink layer. An overlay of another specialty dry ink can be processed on top of CMYK dry ink layers, a feature first made available with another Fuji Xerox digital printer, the Color 1000i Press.

While conventional offset printing requires mixing silver ink to make metallic ink, the Iridesse allows for simultaneous printing of several metallic colours during a single printing process.

Green explains, “The Iridesse enhances the Fuji Xerox Australia Graphic Communication range. It is a press that is capable of efficiently and effectively producing print jobs that can’t exist with current technologies in the market.

Things you can do in four or five different processes, now get done in one.

“While offset printing involves significant time and cost for making plates, adjusting colours and proofreading, digital printing can process jobs with less time and cost and add value to printed materials. Enhancing the value of print products with the use of their capital equipment, such as digital printers, is critical for printing companies to grow their businesses.

“We are now looking at an industry that sees beyond the printed piece itself and instead is now dealing with how people feel about what is printed. People are responding to customised collateral as it provides a sense of value.” Rightfully so, as studies since 2013 have indicated that consumers care for print with Millennials seeking authenticity from products and services.
The standard colour library contains Pantone+Metallic and Pantone+Premium Metallic. With these, the operator can reproduce colours similar to Pantone metallic colours on printing materials by designating the colour codes.

Fuji Xerox says, “Going forward, white dry ink will also be added to the specialty dry ink line-up to accommodate printing on dark coloured or other specialty papers. Compared to printers using only conventional CMYK dry inks, adopting special dry inks expands the range of expression, which adds value for effective marketing activities.”

Finishing options include Fuji Xerox’s Finisher D6 with Booklet Maker, Crease/Two-sided Trimmer D2, and SquareFold Trimmer D1, which can be connected to the Iridesse press, allowing for automatic production of professional booklets and folded leaflets.

The hardware has improved automation including registration and alignment, enabling one-man operation. Value-added elements include XMPie cross media marketing software, which enables a multichannel approach, while the Finisher D6, allows for a fore-edge, top and bottom trim, five creases; all included for automated finishing.

The company says the finishing options expand the possible printing applications by enabling the producetion of complex folded leaflets including accordion-fold and gatefold.

“CMYK dry inks are made of High Definition EA Dry Ink (HD EA Dry Ink)—one of the world’s smallest particle size toners. The HD EA Dry Ink fuses quickly at low temperature and is evenly fused onto the paper.

This is achieved through marking technology that achieves even transferring of six layers of dry inks.

Against the backdrop of rapidly diversifying consumers’ needs, the printing industry is adjusting its use of printing techniques. Instead of just relying on conventional offset printing, which performs well for high-volume jobs, more businesses are choosing on-demand printing, which is shorter in turnaround time and prints the necessary number of copies for catalogues, manuals, and advertising materials.

The focus is now on the individual, with customers seeking bespoke products that give the impression that they were made specifically for them. The Iridesse Production Press will enable brands to represent themselves effectively to market through graphic communication.

Quentin Sandery, national manager, Production Solutions Business Group, Fuji Xerox Australia, says, “It is about personalisation for end users. Businesses should be able to align their collateral in accordance with their brand. With the Iridesse Production Press, collateral colours can be matched to brands or personalised, with colours patterned, mixed, enhanced to provide more than printed communications. It all ties into the notion of creating that bespoke feeling amongst end users.”

Fuji Xerox says that it is built to deliver superior productivity, impressive image quality and flexible media capabilities, and the Iridesse Production Presses workflow enables a new level of sophistication. The press includes integrated tools that assist with preproduction: FreeFlow and the function rich FX developed print controller, GX Print Server, which allows for job flow to run seamlessly.

For example, the Fuji Xerox system bundles jobs of the same properties such the media type, size, and paper weight as well as the type of finish, minimising the labour of setting stocks and changing the finisher.

The system maximises the productivity of digital printing that supports varied short-run jobs, shortening the delivery period.

Sandery says, “To the commercial printer who wants to focus on producing jobs more efficiently and effectively, this is the ultimate press to do it.

"Production teams can now get colours that would previously take hours to achieve and they do not need to worry about finishes or sheet sizes. This machine will do it all. It has the potential to change the core of the print provider’s operations and how they look at their business.  

“With current market pressures to be in a constant state of innovation, we have released a solution that will ensure print providers are able to either accelerate their operations or advance their service offering.”

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