Quick Printing

JUL 2014

Quick Printing is the only business resource serving the quick and small commercial printing niche in North America. Quick Printing is the authoritative source for business information, emerging technologies, shop profiles and management insight.

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What are ideal applications for inkjet, toner, and offset print? By Bob Hall Since the "robust" drupa experience, production inkjet has become a real competitor to toner based and offset out- put devices. While there is no doubt of the impact inkjet has had on production printing, some questions remain. What are the ideal applications? Can inkjet stand on its own as the sole production output device? Where could it fit in with offset or digital toner equipment? "It is probably impor- tant to dissect produc- tion inkjet into two categories," said Todd L. Smith, manager, product marketing for Wide Format and Inkjet Products, Konica Minolta Business Solutions. "You have continuous-feed inkjet and cut-sheet inkjet and each has unique benefits, specific workflows, and advantages over the other." Smith said that continuous-feed inkjet offers "amazing" production speeds and production volumes, but not the best i m a g e quality compared to toner-based or offset tech- nologies. He noted that continuous-feed inkjet came to market around seven years ago primarily in transactional, book, and direct mail applications. He noted that HP, Kodak, Screen, Ricoh, and Canon Solutions America all have continuous feed production inkjet systems. Contin- uous-feed can be from roll-to-roll, roll- to-folder, roll-to-cutter, or roll-to in-line finishing. Cut-sheet is a newer category for pro- duction inkjet, according to Smith. He said it is still coming to market with a few players in the market with products from HP, Screen, and Fujifilm focused around B2 format paper size. KM also partnered with Komori to co-develop the 29-inch KM-1 cut-sheet production inkjet printer. "The outlook is that general commer- cial print, direct mail, and some book applications will gravitate towards the cut-sheet production inkjet market with a focus on high image quality like offset," says to Smith. According to Mike Herold, director, CF Production Inkjet: Coexist vs. Stand Alone I t wasn't that long ago that inkjet technology was limited to consumer desktop devices. However, manufacturers dreamed of bigger things as they pushed the technology into the graphic communications industry—frst in the wide-format arena and later into production color inkjet for the commercial printing and transactional segments. I recall sitting through a series 2008 drupa presentations by inkjet developers where the operational word seemed to be "robust", as if to reassure everyone that the inkjet heads wouldn't wimp out on you in a production environment. The InfoPrint 5000 MP from Ricoh is a digital high-speed inkjet platform that can run a variety of inks and fluids and can be utilized in various configurations. J u l y 2 0 1 4 / Q U I C K P R I N T I N G 19 w w w. M y P R I N T R e s o u r c e . c o m QP_19-21_0714_Inkjet.indd 19 6/16/14 4:03 PM

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