Heidelberg to launch B1 digital inkjet press

Offset press giant Heidelberg is launching B1 inkjet digital sheetfed presses for commercial and packaging printers, as part of its new forward-looking inkjet strategy.

The new press is being developed in conjunction with Fujifilm, with which Heidelberg has signed a partnership agreement. Fujifilm technology – including one of the JetPress 540W inkjet printers – is already in the Heidelberg R&D labs.

There is as yet no launch date for the B1 press, which will be developed in two versions, one for commercial printers and one for packaging printers. Heidelberg is targetting the presses at the increasingly popular run lengths of between 250 and 2500 sheets, as well as for variable data work.

[Related: More Heidelberg news]

Heidelberg is one of the press manufacturers that signed up to work with Benny Landa's nano press technology, however the company is privately sceptical that nano presses will get off the ground. The Fujifilm technology by contrast is proven technology. Heidelberg will continue to work with Ricoh, but its printers are cutsheet toner based, and there are no plans for joint development work.

The first result of the new partnership with Fujifilm is an inkjet object printer, which Heidelberg says will print on anything from bottles to aeroplanes, in up to six-colours, with the inkjet heads on a robot. German operation FlyerAlarm – a Vistaprint-type operation – is currently installing the first such printer.

Later this year Heidelberg will launch a digital inkjet label press, which it is developing as a three way partnership between itself, Gallus and Fujifilm. The company says it will score on quality at 1200x1200dpi, speed, flexibility and common label substrate acceptance.

Heidelberg is making the major move into inkjet as it believes this is where the future lies both for itself and for printers in the short run sector. Fujifilm and Screen already have B2 sheetfed presses, as does HP Indigo. However Heidelberg has the market penetration thanks to its offset business.

Its core offset market though has been decimated since the onset of the GFC, and while it will see growth in the developing world, particularly the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China – which between then host half the world's population – its projections for offset press sales in the western world are of gradual decline.

Heidelberg's turnover is only half what it was before the GFC, and it has since let go about 45 per cent of its staff, or some 8000 people. Its share price has lost 90 per cent of its value since then, although in the past 12 months it has risen by a third. At the height of the GFC Heidelberg had to be rescued by the state and federal German governments, which led to several years of restructuring, however the company says that period is now behind it.

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