Five thousand customers flocked to Switzerland for the Hunkeler Innovation Days event in late February, taking in the latest in high speed and high volume digital printing equipment.
The picturesque Swiss city of Lucerne boasts a stunning backdrop of alpine grandeur, with huge mountains reaching up to and into the clouds. One of those gigantic edifices, as old as time, sits right outside the Messe where the high volume digital printing sector gathered for the 2015 Hunkeler Innovation Days event late in February.
It made for a spectacular setting as the leading players in inkjet printing showed off the ever-expanding horizons of the technology at the biennial get-together. But while the mountain took millennia to form and broods immovably over the entire vicinity, continuous feed inkjet printing shows every sign of zooming straight into the stratosphere as quickly as possible.
The Hunkeler Innovationdays show seems to grow in importance with every staging – this was confirmed by many exhibitors. Something like 11,500 individual visits through the doors – exhibitors and customers – was expected over the four day show, with some 5000 customers attending. It is also an evolving exhibition, because the technology that it highlights is doing so itself so rapidly. There was a great deal of new technology to look at, both in printing, finishing and paper handling.
Canon, Kodak, Pitney Bowes, Xeikon, Xerox, Muller Martini, Meccanotecnica and hosts Hunkeler themselves all displayed new or improved technology at the event: more on the new products later. Digital Printer spent a day at the show and took the opportunity to speak to some of the leading lights in digital printing. There is so much discussion about inkjet printing, its potential, its performance in terms of speed and quality, its suitability or otherwise for many different types of media. The question posed to manufacturers was, what are they hearing from their customers and potential customers in respect of which of these frontiers is the most important?
‘All of those things, but certainly being able to print onto a broad range of papers, which we would coat and protect coat,’ said Ricoh Europe director Graham Moore. ‘That has certainly been a key attribute of the Ricoh VC 60000 system that people are particularly interested in. but different customers prioritise different things, so it is hard to put them in order.’
Deals were sealed at Hunkeler including Parajett’s purchase of a Ricoh Pro VC60000
‘The two areas that our customers are pushing on,’ said Mike Holyoake, general manager for the UK & Netherlands at Xerox European Graphic Communications, ‘are, what substrates can they push through the device; and is the quality of print good enough for the applications they have got,’.
Brian Filler, president of Screen Europe, said that with high speed continuous inkjet ‘undoubtedly the most important thing is being able to justify an ROI’. He went on: ‘That’s the first thing you have to prove. We are not trying to take over from litho. We are trying to find customers that have got an application that litho print struggles to meet.
‘All the paper manufacturers are falling over themselves to manufacture paper for us because now the tide has turned. There are many installations and there will be many more, and the paper companies know that. The gap will narrow and the ROI and price per page will become more competitive. The more inkjet devices that go out, the more we can justify volumes of ink and that will become more competitive too.’
David Murphy, HP’s worldwide director of marketing & business development for Inkjet Solutions, was a little more succinct on the matter: ‘I would say probably media versatility. That’s why we are working on partnerships and internally with our priming agent, to go from 200-plus stocks to multiple thousands. We are trying to change the conversation from “can I print on this?” to “it’s likely that I can”.’
In amongst advice to ‘invest in technology that can grow its linear speed without fundamental upgrades’ as there ‘might be hidden costs as you go upstream in your market’, Eric Owen, worldwide vice president for sales & marketing in Kodak’s Enterprise Inkjet Systems division, opined that ‘ultimately customers are looking for throughput and price; the running costs to do it’.
Mr Owen continued: ‘Our perspective is to try to drive the three pillars of quality, productivity and running costs. People should expect enhancements that benefit those things. We know we can go faster and wider. The quality of inkjet printing is ever-improving across the board. Moore’s Law applies: every two to three years there is a step improvement in these things. As more pages migrate, the whole model will begin to feed on itself and drive in the direction that will make inkjet a commodity in 10 to 15 years, like offset is now.’
He closed with that advice once more: ‘People need to make sure that they understand how far the jetting and writing technology they buy can really go.’
Plus points
Kodak’s technology of course is the Prosper, a new version of which was shown at the exhibition: the Prosper 1000 Plus press, which Kodak says is the world’s fastest black and white inkjet press, printing at speeds of up to 1000 feet per minute (300 metres per minute). This makes it compatible with Hunkeler’s POPP8 paper handling technology, which is designed to run at such speeds, and the two technologies were shown together. There was also the company’s new offline coating solution, the Prosper IOS, which produces optimally coated inkjet paper for the Prosper presses.
Pitney Bowes Epic inserter
While the Prosper 1000 Plus is a mono press, Mr Owen remarked upon the growth of colour inkjet, which now comprises two thirds of the installed Prosper base. Of the colour presses, about half are doing book work, and of those about half also handle more commercial, direct mail and catalogue type work. The rest of the colour Prospers are handling general DM and moving into commercial print applications. He also said that Kodak expects a substantial number of colour presses to go into newspaper plants this year, with speed enough for the day’s production making possible a genuine migration from offset to digital for some.
‘It’s getting closer but it still costs more today to do inkjet so you need something else that compels you to pick up that extra expense. There is a lot of aging equipment in the newspaper market and they are faced with a decision: do they replace it with another 30 year offset investment when their print runs are getting shorter, or go to digital print with variable data and targeted advertising? The value of digitally-printed newspapers is starting to take hold, and you will see some news on that this year.’
Ricoh was showing its VC 6000 inkjet press at a public event for the first time (it was shown at the company’s New Dawn event in Telford last year), and Graham Moore said the reaction had been very positive. The press, which is the result of a joint development with Dainippon Screen and is sold by that company as the Screen TruePress Jet 520HD, is noted for the quality of its 1200 by 1200 dpi output, which is taking Ricoh into a broad range of graphic arts applications, beyond books into quality direct mail and promotional marketing collateral. Though there have been two European orders and a third – Parajett of Sweden – was announced at the Hunkeler Innovation Days, there is no news of a UK customer yet, with a ‘considerable number of discussions’ ongoing.
‘The quality that we are getting out of the system has captured everyone’s imagination on a range of substrates,’ said Mr Moore. ‘That’s a key attribute and it extends our reach from the InfoPrint 5000 family, allowing us to move into high quality, high value applications.’
Screen had its version of the press on its booth, where Brian Filler told Digital Printer that ‘everyone has been shocked at the quality we are achieving; it is really putting inkjet on the map’. There are differences between the Ricoh and Screen presses, notably in software (Screen’s Equios rather than Ricoh’s Process Director) and that Screen is not selling the press with the coating unit that Ricoh is. This may limit the media choices for Screen users, but will make it less expensive in capital equipment and consumables terms. Mr Filler reported that the company was in ‘early days’ of discussions with a potential UK customer, though there are mainland European installations.
From Xerox came the news of a new press that is roll-fed but outputs cut sheets. The Xerox Rialto 900 inkjet press is intended to bridge the gap between cut sheet toner and continuous inkjet. It is the first result of collaboration between the development teams at Xerox and Impika, and is built around two Panasonic inkjet heads also used in the Impika presses. Xerox said the press is aimed at printers who produce 1.5 to five million impressions per month.
Mike Holyoake said that the press is aimed at the direct mail and transactional print sector, where there are SMEs that do not have the volumes or investment capability to purchase a large inkjet press. The Rialto 900 enables them to get into the colour market affordably (the press is listed at around US$750,000). Security print specialist Datagraphic in Rugby ordered the press at the Hunkeler show, to become the first UK customer.
Oce ImageStream 2400
‘From a UK perspective, we have got a number of very interested parties,’ he said. ‘There are a number that have already made an investment in inkjet, but the big issue is how do they handle re-runs, overs, last minute changes? They are looking at a system like this working in tandem with their original investment.
‘It’s quite tricky to do a couple of thousand on a roll to roll inkjet, but with the Rialto you can do that, and then your output can go straight into an inserter.’
HP was keen to follow up on its recent announcement of new inkjet print head technology – the High Definition Nozzle Architecture (HDNA). Set to become available as a retrofit to HP inkjet web presses in 2016, the technology delivers double the number of nozzles across the head that current HP inkjet heads do. HDNA will enable a highest quality resolution of 1200 dpi, and a performance mode speed of 244 metres per minute, according to HP. A dual drop weight capability (a heavier and a lighter ink drop) will give finer half tone gradation with less visible grain, while built-in nozzle redundancy means that if one nozzle fails, eight others are able to fill in for it.
David Murphy commented: ‘It is really starting to close the gap between what’s only addressable by litho and what can be substituted with inkjet. Quality and performance is the value combination that customers want. We believe this will catapult us to the forefront of the competition. We are telling our customers now so they can begin their capital investment plans.’
He added that although a good deal of information and data related to the HDNA technology was still to be finalised, there would be further announcements in the middle of 2015. The pricing of upgrade kits will be ‘attractive and comfortable’ for customers, he said, costing less than 20% of the original buying price of the press. However, it would currently take about a week to upgrade a press to HDNA, a timescale which HP is working to reduce.
Technology on Stream
Amongst a plethora of announcements from Canon was the introduction of new continuous feed inkjet printers – the Océ ColorStream 3000 Z series and the Océ ImageStream 2400 – and a sheetfed inkjet press – the Océ VarioPrint i300. The ColorStream 3000 Z has been designed in parallel with the existing ColorStream 3000 but has a smaller footprint. The ImageStream 2400 introduces the ability to print on offset-coated media in web widths of 20.5 inches (520 mm) for 2-up A4 applications. Meanwhile, the VarioPrint i300 is the company’s first high speed sheetfed inkjet press. It can print at speeds of up to 8500 duplex A4 sheets or 3800 duplex B3 sheets per hour.
Xeikon was showing its newly announced Xeikon 9800 press at the event, which has a throughput of up to 63 feet per minute on a maximum 20.3 inch (512 mm) web width. It has a print resolution of 1200 x 3600 dpi and a fifth colour station for spot colour and security applications.
On its stand, Pitney Bowes was showing its new Mailstream Engage direct marketing solution, which incorporates a unique fold that delivers high impact, full colour, personalised mailers from an A4 sheet. Also new on its stand was a new inserter, the Epic, which is highly automated in set up and operates at 21,000 items per hour.
Grant Miller, vice president for global strategic product management at Pitney Bowes, revealed that the company is working towards a goal of making its print and mail products ‘more plug and play’. He said: ‘Going forward, we will be able to take the same chassis and add it to another machine quickly and easily. The user interface will automatically configure and pull down the right drivers.’
There was a new perfect binder on Muller Martini’s booth, this being the Vareo – a three-clamp machine that was begun by Heidelberg until taken over by the Swiss manufacturer. It is interchangeable between hotmelt and PUR. Capable of 1350 cycles per hour, the device is aimed at the run length of one book market, so is highly automated in detecting format changes and setting up accordingly.
Italian manufacturer Meccanotecnica gave a debut to its new Universe Inline modular book finishing line, which enables multiple forms of finishing for hard or soft cover books, handling sewn or perfect bound book blocks. The overall line has a top mechanical speed of 20 cycles per minute and can work with a maximum book size of 440 x 320 mm.
Horizon presented a fully automatic variable book production line – the Smart-binding system -consisting of a folding machine, book block formation, 9-clamp perfect binder and three-knife trimmer. Binding and cutting processes are completely variable, so each book can be produced in an individual size or format. For gathering, Horizon showed its new Facebook Block Stacker BBS-40 in Europe for the first time. It selectively glues the signatures after alignment, stacks and presses into a solid book block.
Hunkeler’s own technology on show included the DP8 dynamic punch and perf machine and the HL6 laser for security applications, which can carry out sophisticated features such as numbering and micro-perforating. The company’s Book Line, which was purchased by Ashford Colour Press last year, was shown with new DynaCut variable book format cutting with fully automatic format changeover. It is capable of working at speeds of up to 200 books per minute. Immediately following the Hunkeler Innovationdays it was announced that Print On Demand Worldwide in Peterborough had signed up for the enhanced Hunkeler Book Line.
