Inkjet's Age, a print supplement to Quick Printing, is a business and technology brand dedicated to corporate and senior management and focusing on issues surrounding inkjet printing technology in all its forms. Inkjet's Age covers the industry news,
Issue link: https://quickprinting.epubxp.com/i/268657
in the US—up from zero percent only six years ago. However, double-digit roll-fed growth pales by comparison to cut-sheet, which McMahon said is expected to grow by triple digits at an astonishing 144 per- cent rate. At the quadrennial PRINT 13 tradeshow last September, CSA entered the color inkjet cut-sheet market by show- ing a technology demonstration of its "Niagara:" code name for the manufactur- er's new, high-volume sheetfed press target- ing the B3 (14x20 inch) print market. Expect an official product name and launch in May, McMahon noted, with "a first installation in the third or fourth quarter" at transactional printer RevSpring's facility in Phoenix, AZ. In addition, McMahon said Canon has beefed up its inkjet presence in the past year, adding staff in marketing and even hiring a paper scientist. He proudly an- nounced that more than 800 types of media now are certified to print on Canon digital printers, and that number may double by year-end 2014. "We've partnered with every single paper mill in the US," he proclaimed. On March 1, CSA opened a media lab in Boca Raton, FL, designed for live testing across its inkjet- and toner-based products. The new lab provides CSA the capacity to work with paper mills to test even more sheets with more inks, much more quickly, McMahon noted. The newest paper addition is a 45-pound coated sheet for the educational book mar- ket. A Crown Van Gelder (CVG) product called LetsGo Silk was formerly only avail- able in Europe. Through its media lab in Poing, Germany, CSA worked closely with CVG to optimize the product for Océ ink- jet platforms. The sheet now is available in North American through Gould Paper. As more media becomes compatible with the inkjet process, CSA's Poulin predicts large growth in direct mail as well as com- mercial print, citing the specialized market of school date books as one example. "A ma- jor book printer in the US has several cut- sheet devices," he added. Direct mail printer SG360, Arlington Heights and Wheeling, IL, near Chicago, installed an Océ Color- Stream 3700 digital color printing system in mid-2013. Bob Radzis, chief customer offi- cer of the firm (formerly known as Segerdahl Graphics), found that he can produce a run of 15,000 for $200 less than offset, plus pro- vide metrics that prove return on investment (ROI) for his customers. "They are tracking fully integrated campaigns," CSA's McMahon noted. Not only is SG360 executing one-to-one, fully variable digital color at the same (or lower) cost than offset printing, but Radzis has transferred much of the work to inkjet from HP Indigo digital presses. "The [inkjet] quality is there," asserted McMahon, who is entering his fourth year at Canon (Océ) fol- lowing an eight-year stint with HP. Kodak Resurrected At the reborn Eastman Kodak, where bankruptcy is over and the firm's common stock has been relisted on the NYSE, op- portunities are measured in terms of four "vectors," according to Will Mansfield, mar- keting director of Inkjet Printing Solutions: 1. New applications, such as "magalogs" and other commercial printing. 2. Hybrid imprinting replacement, from multiple processes to "white paper in." 3. Laser replacement for high page counts, such as medical insurance enroll- ment documents for the US Affordable Care Act, which Mansfield said is proving to be a healthy boon for many print firms. ("Personalized benefits enrollment docu- ments are an ideal fit for our inkjet custom- ers," he added. "Book production environ- ments have the physical infrastructure for this type of work, while transactional print- ers understand the data and workflow.") 4. Offset replacement for short-run books and more versioned content, perhaps even newspapers (see sidebar below and case study on page 8). It is no secret that Kodak has invested big in inkjet—from its speedy Stream writing system and a new Prosper 5000XLi "intel- ligent print" press model (see sidebar on page 25) to nano-particulate, pigment-based inksets introduced last year to increase dura- bility on a wider range of paper stocks. Mansfield said that inkjet encroachment now can be seen on package imprinting applications in the food and pharmaceuti- cal vertical markets—"from promotional messages to health and safety information and even tracking. A customer in France is versioning baguette bags using inkjet, and Kodak Stream technology is soon to be implemented by a popular restaurant chain that he said is a "household name" in America. Former Kodak and now HP executive Pat McGrew contended, "High-speed produc- tion inkjet is now the default production technology for many segments. The current www.MyPRINTResource.com MARCH 2014 • INKJET'S AGE 11 KODAK's Prosper 5000XLi Press The KODAK PROSPER 5000XLi Press combines the field-proven performance of the PROSPER Press Platform with new press management technology that constantly monitors and adjusts settings to ensure the highest quality output. At the core of the press is the Intelligent Print System (IPS), which is designed to process thousands of press inputs that measure imaging performance, detecting variations and making adjustments as needed on the fly. With IPS, the Press continu- ously learns from the input and calculates imaging improvements to deliver measur- ably higher levels of print quality with industry-leading productivity. This improvement is achieved regardless of varying substrates, image content, web speed, and environ- mental conditions. Kodak's newly formulated nano-particulate pigment inks are matched to the PROSPER 5000XLi Press's writing system, offering greater durability on coated papers and a color gamut up to 30 percent wider than offset printing. To help ensure crisp, readable output, the press also features a new text enhancement feature. MyPRINTResource.com/10877185 QPsupp_10-13_0314 Impact Inkjet.indd 11 2/18/14 11:41 AM