We have seen what inkjet has done to web printing. At the last drupa high-speed webfed inkjet became widely available, with a host of developers launching systems including Kodak, HP, Fujifilm, Impeka, KBA, joining Océ, Ricoh and Screen, which had launched systems four years prior to that.
At drupa 2016 though we will see sheetfed inkjet take centre stage – so far we know that with both Heidelberg and Landa are set to launch B1 inkjet presses, and Konica Minolta and Komori will launch their co-developed B2 printer to join the Fujifilm and Screen B2 sheetfed inkjets, with others sure to join the party.
Heidelberg says its B1 inkjet ‘will not compromise’ on quality, while Landa says its B1 will similarly offer offset quality, thanks to its nano (small size) ink particles.
Some pundits say that if inkjet can indeed operate at offset litho speeds while producing offset litho quality, the old faithful analogue press days are numbered. After all with no prepress, no plates and no makeready, a press could produce non-stop print, upping the efficiencies of print production significantly.
However Both Fujifilm and Screen have had B2 sheetfed inkjet since the last drupa, but sales have been sluggish to say the least, with probably less than 100 of these presses sold around the world.
HP Indigo’s HP 10000 has been the most successful of the B2 sheetfed printers with around ten now installed in Australia, but this is a toner press (albeit Indigo’s liquid toner) and as such has speed restrictions.
Meanwhile, inkjet inks are dropping in price to challenge toners, which has renewed the interest in inkjet as a volume proposition in commercial printing.
On the trail of offset’s killer app
So where would the new sheetfed inkjets slot into commercial digital print? Brisbane printer James Bennett, whose CPX Printing & Logistics in Kelvin Grove is one of Queensland’s largest digital print houses, regularly goes overseas on fact-finding missions, together with Michael Schulz of partner company SOS Print & Media in Sydney – and their latest visit took in some prime sheetfed inkjet developments in Asia and Europe.
The pair found the new technology interesting and also challenging, because, as Bennett says, “we have a lot to lose if inkjet migrates further into our space”, and as well known technology adopters, both companies will be upgrading when the time comes, he says.
On their latest trip this year, first stop was Bangkok, where they viewed Xerox’s new inkjet offerings, including the 1400 Color Continuous Feed Printing System, which, while not a sheetfed line, offers sheeting as a finishing option, along with folding.
“Xerox are working heavily on their inks and printing on coated stocks. We saw examples of coated stocks in Bangkok and we were pleasantly surprised. Printing on coated stocks is the holy grail,” Bennett tells ProPrint.
He predicts that at around $A1,000 per tonne for untreated papers, as distinct from some $A2,000 per tonne for treated, inkjet will be in a handshake with sheetfed printing and will have achieved its breakthrough moment.
“Once a developer comes up with an inkjet device that can print on coated stocks, once we are able to buy stocks that have not been treated and we are not paying a premium for them, and the device will lay down the etching agent and print on coated stocks, and deliver a saleable print, we are all in a world of hurt.
“The offset transfer will be phenomenal. There are a lot of printers out there who do not believe this is going to happen and are running traditional offset businesses, and they are going to lose a significant volume of work because inkjet is going to take it in the next two to three years,” says Bennett.
Further into the trip, they visited Océ in the Netherlands and also spoke to representatives of CVG, a Dutch paper vendor that specialises in inkjet treated stocks, to see what was available now and in development for the future in inkjet stocks.
The drupa 2016-bound Heidelberg sheetfed inkjet project – in which a Heidelberg feeder, transport and delivery system is integrated with Fujifilm inkjet heads – is high on Bennett’s ‘to-view’ list at the German trade show, as will be Konica Minolta’s B2 cutsheet device, which is being beta site tested. “Everybody’s racing to do the same thing because this will revolutionise the industry”, says Bennett.
He predicts that the old maximum run lengths of 500-1,000, depending on click charges and service costs, that used to see a job migrated to litho will become obsolete. “With inkjet, runs will be in the thousands. One thousand books, now printed offset, will simply be done on inkjet.”
That has been the experience at SOS in Sydney, which has operated webfed inkjet engines successfully for several years. Most of its work has been transferred from offset; quantities range from 50 to 5,000 and even more when variable data components are added.
“Here in Brisbane I want to be sure we time it right and that the quality is saleable,” Bennett cautions, as quality to match offset may still be an issue.
“But there are some significant advantages, namely, a job, say, 500 annual reports printed four-colour CMYK on art paper, which we could potentially produce in around 48 hours if were really racing, in inkjet, I could most probably knock that job off in a couple of hours and be binding it immediately – and most probably do it less expensively,” he reflects. And, of course, VDP can be added in, so the technology readily lends itself to DM jobs.
Bennett’s summation: “Sheetfed inkjet will not kill litho but it will rob it of the shorter-run jobs still produced that way.”
Inkjet a watching brief
For Ken Williams, CEO of Excel Australasia, sheetfed inkjet is a technology he is ‘keeping an eye on’ but waiting for quality (and that includes substrate limitations) and speed (speed of a certain quality of output) to emerge in the presses. He sees it as optimal for high volumes of mailers and catalogues, but perhaps less ideal for the medium runs that Excel does. However, Williams believes that in around two years from now, sheetfed inkjet could begin to displace lithographic presses.
Excel Australasia for its part continues to invest in laser-toner digital, having migrated from NexPresses to Xerox iGen – the company has two 150s and a Nuvera for mono printing. “We studied all platforms for almost a year, considering factors such as technology, quality, consistency, service and the ability to automate – it was not an easy decision,” he recollects. “The technology of the iGen proved to be the winner in terms of consistency, with the first, the 100th, the 1,000th, and the 20,000th impression all good quality.”
These days Excel is leveraging its printing acumen with software development in an overall mix that Williams describes as ‘knowledge management in a knowledge economy’. He distinguishes ‘ink on paper’ from ‘dynamic print’, arguing that the former is in decline, while the latter is a vital component of multimedia marketing.
Excel now has software development facilities in Melbourne, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma) and Norway, for the financial industry, real estate, casinos and online gaming, and location-based push marketing in shopping centres. For the foreseeable future, Excel has invested in laser-toner printing as a component of this electronic/print marketing mix, he says. Williams expresses faith in print’s contemporary role: “If someone picks up a printed piece and looks it over, print has done its job.”
Partnering for sheetfed digital
Heidelberg is partnering with Fujifilm on its sheetfed inkjet press line aimed at commercial and packaging printers, and Fujifilm’s inkjet acumen, as invested in the JetPress 540W, is a major part of what the Japanese developer is bringing to the agreement, with Fujifilm heads integrated with Heidelberg’s paper handling technology.
Reflecting on the joint development, in progress since 2013, Jason Oliver, head of Heidelberg digital states: “Our goal is to demonstrate the true industrialisation of offset quality inkjet for markets like packaging, specialty and commercial.”
The German press giant is also in partnership with Israel’s Landa Corporation on the latter’s nanographic technology, but is reported to be privately sceptical of nanography’s potential for market impact.
Asked for his thoughts about prospects for sheetfed digital, Oliver states: “We believe the quality at 1,200dpi and drop sizes in the range of 2pl can be equivalent to offset in situations where other technologies are incorporated to provide consistent colour and reduction of visual artifacts. From a speed standpoint at offset quality, printhead technology remains limited, meaning it will be several years before single-pass inkjet meets offset quality and offset speeds.”
In his opinion, does litho have a future after sheetfed digital hits its stride? “Offset will stay long-term as the technology with the highest quality in combination with costs and prices in the market. Given improvements in offset technology, like Anicolor, for the quickest of changeovers, offset has incredible staying power from a simple cost and quality standpoint. Our offerings include both technologies, offset and digital, to provide our customers the most efficient solution for his business.”
Meanwhile in Japan, digital developer Konica Minolta and offset powerhouse Komori are putting the finishing touches on the KM1, a co-developed 74cm sheet-fed UV inkjet press to be launched in the first half of 2016.
Significantly, the developers claim their B2-plus sized technology can handle paper of different thicknesses, ranging from thin paper to packaging paper. But the knockout claim, is this: “The KM-1 can also print, without the necessity of pre-coating, on rough paper, Japanese paper, and other types of paper that are difficult to print using a conventional press.”
Meanwhile on the other side of the world, based on Océ’s iQarius inkjet technology, Canon Océ is offering the Océ VarioPrint i300 sheetfed colour inkjet press. The developers claim for the B3 line that it is capable of 294 US-letter format impressions per minute. Canon Océ sees the i300 as a crossover system, leveraging its piezo jets and ink developed for the ColorStream 3000 web press and integrating these into the paper transport from the sheetfed VarioPrints. No word yet on whether this will grow into a B2 or B1 press, but it will surely be in the developer’s sights, and Océ has been a pioneer of inkjet printing with its webfed inkjets launched at drupa 2008, and having more installations than any other manufacturer.
Peeking behind the nano curtain
B1 inkjet, of course, may yet be challenged by the nanographic technology developed by Israeli print guru Benny Landa’s Landa Corporation, which has not yet secured an Australian vendor, but is readying its much anticipated press range based on the revolutionary nanographic process.
Unlike inkjet, which wets the paper, Landa’s dry technology that uses super-efficient light-absorbing nanopigments which are laminated to the stock during printing, is creating a global buzz as a potential print game-changer.
Landa’s S-range of presses (S5, S7 and S10) is spearheaded by the S10, a B1,1,050mm format for commercial and folding-carton production. Landa claims the S10 can print ‘on any off-the-shelf substrate in up to eight colours’, optimising it for commercial printing, direct mail, POP/POS, boxes and sleeves, blister cards and micro-flute applications.
With a crossover point of around 5,000 sheets, or 30,000 boxes, Landa says “It provides a digital solution for over 50 per cent of the world’s jobs and an even higher crossover when ganging jobs or adding variable barcodes”.
But the big question is whether nanographic printing can conquer coated stocks, and in this endeavour, it is in a race to market with inkjet. The interest in the Landa press concept is intense, it is sure to be the busiest stand at drupa, but whether Benny Landa can actually deliver the promised nano technology remains to be seen, the project is running behind schedule, although beta test sites are said to be being prepared to take the B1 folding carton press for early in the new year.
Sheetfed B1 and B2 inkjet is in its early stages, where promise is carrying more weight than reality, but in concept at least there is no doubt that they will be compelling, it all depends on whether the developers can deliver, if they can it may mark the beginning of the end for offset litho’s 50 year reign as king of the printing world.
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