Just as it did with the first generation of Ricoh production presses, Heidelberg is to re-badge the second generation as Linoprints. Its attention is being increasingly drawn to inkjet too.
Some six months on from its ‘Digital Sneak Peak’ (reported in Digital Printer, April 2014), Heidelberg held a series of ‘HEI Flexibility Days’ in Germany in November, giving customers and invited press the opportunity to see its next generation of digital presses, and to discuss its plans for digital printing in a wider sense.
The new engines – which Heidelberg is calling the Linoprint CP (Commercial Performance) and Linoprint CV (Commercial Value) – are of course Ricoh’s latest models (which it calls the Pro C9100 and Pro C7100). Heidelberg says it has been able to influence a number of factors in the design of these systems. When purchased from Heidelberg, they will be accompanied by the German manufacturer’s new Printect Digital Frontend, which uses colour management and RIP technology that has been tried and tested in offset printing. This front end technology is capable of integrating digital presses and offset equipment such as CTP and litho presses within its workflow – something that Jason Oliver, head of digital printing at Heidelberg, says most print shops wish to do.
To assist recall, the Ricoh Pro C9100 series is capable of printing at up to 130 pages per minute and has a duty cycle of 1.7 million prints per month. The C7100 is a five colour press, with white or clear varnish added to CMYK, capable of up to 90 pages per minute output. Heidelberg said it will begin shipments in spring 2015. It also revealed that it has sold 500 of the first generation Ricoh presses worldwide so far.
‘The partnership with Ricoh has been pretty successful for us, but we are moving forward with the next step now,’ said Mr Oliver. ‘The Linoprint CP is a true alternative to Indigo and iGen products in quality, performance and duty cycle. This digital press really sounds like a printing machine when you stand next to it; it’s a big difference. Our customers were looking for these machines – the price performance is much better and the quality is unbelievable. We are investing a lot to understand how offset and digital can be combined and what the right process steps are in that.’
(XHEAD) Inject intentions
Heidelberg has taken a far broader perspective to digital printing than its partnership with Ricoh however. While it expects that toner-based systems will be around for a long time to come, and points out that this market is growing within both Ricoh’s and its own business, there are other market sectors and opportunities where inkjet will be, and in some cases already is, the answer. Its strategy here is to partner with Fujifilm, whose Jet Press has ‘the best dot in the industry for inkjet’ it said.
‘When I got here two years ago, the Ricoh partnership was already in place, but we needed to add more value,’ Mr Oliver continued. ‘We took a good look around and make a quick decision that we needed to become a serious player in inkjet. So, we asked ourselves: who is the leader in inkjet heads, inks etc. for industrial inkjet print? The answer was Fuji. We are developing products around that technology. We are leaving no stone unturned, looking at what our customers need, and we will put the right partnerships together to do that.’
The first development has been the Gallus DCS-340 – a roll-to-roll UV inkjet system for label and foil printing that will start to enter beta testing early in 2015. As it announced in April though, Heidelberg intends to launch a new sheetfed inkjet press, developed with Fujifilm, in formats up to B1 for the commercial and packaging print markets. It expects to make the first presentation of a press at drupa 2016.
Although the latest version of the Jet Press contains nothing from Heidelberg specifically, it says it has been helping Fujifilm with ideas to improve the machine. ‘We think that given our experience with handling sheets and software we can improve on and do some different things to get greater productivity, the same quality and lower costs,’ said Mr Oliver.
‘Inkjet, in terms of print quality, is ready to go to a Heidelberg customer. The challenge today is that almost everything comes from the digital inkjet head manufacturers. What is missing is everything else that goes around the machine – the ability to service it and provide application support; the workflow to get work to the press. That’s where we understand what the customer wants.’
However, Heidelberg will not, in the immediate term, be selling Ricoh’s new VC60000 inkjet press. ‘We are interested to watch the response in the market place,’ he said. ‘It’s not offset quality but there’s obviously a market there.’
