The $10m order for the two printers puts Sema on the same level as arch rivals Salmat and Computershare, with Salmat installing the country’s first two Oce Jetstreams and Computershare buying the first two InfoPrint 5000s last year. Like its rivals Sema will install one printer in Melbourne and one in Sydney. The companies order two at a time for both capacity and disaster recovery reasons.
It is the first order for the French built Impika printers from an Australian printer. They printers were first shown at the last drupa four years ago. Impika is supplied here by Fuji Xerox, which will also provide service and support.
The company says the twin-engine-duplex printers are part of a strategic project to position Sema to serve clients in the growing variable data market space.
Sema launched the review process in the first quarter 2011 and received tenders from all major inkjet solution manufacturers. Sema selected Impika on the basis of the eVolution platform’s quality and scalability, but also, according to Sema’s chief sales and marketing officer, Brian Smith, “Because the rich IPDS control set allows the customer some leeway in specifying a relevant output quality. The Impika printer allows customers to adjust print quality by varying drop sizes, for instance, and so to get a better match between print costs and job requirements.”
Also critical in clinching the sale was the suitability of the product for Sema’s finishing lines, in particular envelope inserters. Senior management visited a number of reference sites to see Impika printers in production as well as the Impika factory in Marseilles. “We were impressed with Impika engineering development and research as well as plans for new releases”, noted Smith.
The scalable iPrint eVolution platform is configured minimally with two print heads and four channels of colour allowing full colour processing at 76 mpm (1024 A4 equivalents per minute, two-up at a standard resolution of 600 x 600 dpi). Printer outputs can be doubled by the addition of two print heads and quadrupled for duplex printing with the addition of a turn bar and a second tower. In addition, iPrint eVolution provides variable print quality from 360 x 600 dpi up to 2400 x 1200 dpi, including a new and exclusive 600 x 600 dpi resolution with four levels of greyscale.
Smith says, “It’s not only Sema customers who will need to understand the wide range of inkjet possibilities, but company sales personnel as well. With variable data and printing virtually on demand, our sales people will have to focus on outcomes, on open-and-read rates, on supply chain costs and speed to market. The main issues will become relevance and how we can improve customer loyalty.”
“With our purchase of Impika iPrint eVolution printers, for both our Sydney and Melbourne print plants, we can truly say that we are better placed to assist our customers in developing relevant, targeted, trigger-based communications with their customers.”
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