Launched earlier this year, Konica Minolta’s bizhub Press C1100 and C1085 are already making an impact on customers’ businesses.

In a fast moving and changing market, digital press technology needs to be able to cope with high demands and multiple jobs, whatever the nature of their complexity. Konica Minolta believes that its latest production presses, the bizhub Press C1100 and C1085, are the next step in the colour production printer market after its success with its first mid-production system.

Designed for graphic communication providers, central reprographic departments, and anyone who needs to cope with high print production demands, the bizhub Press C1100 and C1085 systems offer ‘outstanding’ performance, with increased print quality and productivity that the manufacturer said demonstrates its ability to drive new market opportunities through innovative technology.

With printing speeds of 100 and 85 pages per minute respectively, the presses are the fastest of Konica Minolta’s colour production printers. They launched earlier this year, through a series of ‘Enable your business’ roadshow events around the UK, giving customers the opportunity to see at first hand the capabilities of the new generation of digital presses, and also to attend free workshops run in conjunction with leading industry consultants.

It has not taken long for customers to start investing in the new technology. Bell and Bain, a printing and binding specialist based in Glasgow, was the first site to install the bizhub Press C1085. Founded in 1831, Bell & Bain is one of the oldest established printing companies still in existence in Scotland, specialising in the printing and binding of business, educational, financial, medical, scientific and religious books and learned journals.

Stephen Docherty, managing director at Bell and Bain, said: ‘We have always had a strong commitment to process and product quality, and also investing in the future of our business, so it was an easy decision for us to purchase the C1085 from Konica Minolta. Specifically, we were impressed with the colour consistency, uptime and performance that it offered us.’

More recently, Konica Minolta installed the first bizhub Press C1100 at a Lancashire-based integrated marketing solutions agency, the Media Village in Altham, which has provided a full mix of marketing services to clients for more than 20 years, including graphic design, photography, direct mail and commercial print.

Production director Aaron Shread spotted an opportunity to grow the business by investing in a new digital press, to give the company a more competitive edge in the challenging digital market. Having been a Konica Minolta customer for the previous five years, and being delighted with the service it had received, the natural choice was to include Konica Minolta on its list of suppliers to visit and to discuss requirements with.

Mr Shread commented: ‘The C1100 was chosen simply because it was the best machine on the market on several fronts.  Already aware of the outstanding support and back up from Konica Minolta, it was pleasing that the bizhub Press C1100 was the first choice for image quality, production quality and productivity from all the machines we looked at. It was also the most cost effective solution, which just reinforced the decision for the Media Village to retain its partnership with Konica Minolta.’

After being installed for just over a month, the C1100 was already having an impact on the Media Village’s growth plans, said Mr Shread. ‘We have increased digital production by approximately 20% in the first month and we expect this to grow further. The quality, speed and reliability of the C1100 is outstanding and is helping us win new business and increase our offering to existing customers.  The purchase has been a real winning decision all round.’

This is a real ringing endorsement of the technology that Konica Minolta is now providing to the graphic arts sector, and Mark Hinder, market development manager for Konica Minolta, observed: ‘The success we are seeing with the bizhub press C1100 and C1085 is indicative of our innovative approach. This new technology allows our customers to enjoy improved productivity and quality across a range of applications that support them in developing their businesses.’