Gotta Go - Gotta See Opportunities at PRINT 13 (Commentary)

Commercial Printer: Gotta See What—Where?

PrintCom: The go-to place is PRINT 13 at McCormick Place, Chicago, Sunday, September 8 through Thursday, September 12.

Gotta See the developing aggressive digital printer manufacturers battle for market share as second-tier suppliers push for growth with new, improved and sometimes disruptive technology embedded in a new range of equipment and software—what PrintCom characterizes as opportunistic technologies and products.

Commercial Printer: But I’m not in the market for new equipment, so why go?

PrintCom: You may not be in the market to buy anything, but attendance at PRINT 13 will provide an information base for selecting outsourcing partners. By looking for product and service ideas, printers of all sizes can evaluate potential value enhancements to supplement current capabilities. Outsourcing is a very viable option and PRINT 13 is a great place to see the capabilities that a printer should seek in their outsourcing partners.

Should you choose to go, and we think that it is in your vested print business interests to so choose, time is short but you can still register and go. Here is PrintCom’s analysts’ view of PRINT 13 including ‘gotta see’ technologies and products.

PRINT 13 will be a sea of meetings, co-sponsored events, supplier-hosted gatherings and a full agenda of seminars, all complemented by the largest trade show assembly of digital printing and related postpress equipment to be found in the Western Hemisphere and Europe in 2013. In the five days of PRINT, you cannot participate in show related activates and see all of the displayed equipment. So effective PRINT 13 attendance requires advance planning, including meetings and seminars.

With 60 co-located meetings at PRINT and a full 70+ session seminar program, as well as many booth presentations on the show floor, PRINT 13 is a networking and educational bonanza. They make PRINT 13 a ‘gotta go’ because in today’s competitive multi-media environment you ‘gotta learn.’ A listing of the show’s seminars will be found at: www.print2013.com/SessionsEvents/SeminarProgram.aspx.

You Gotta See

PrintCom analysts have scanned the technology and products expected at PRINT. Printers should define their own competitive and opportunistic possibilities and create an individualized “Gotta See” itinerary. Here is PrintCom analysts' “Gotta See” listing—it should help in creating your show floor itinerary.

While digital full-color presses will be the heart of PRINT, more important will be wide-format equipment and software of all types. Wide-format because it is on the precipice of revolutionary change, and software because it is increasingly the foundation of new equipment and enhancing the operations and competitive position of a printing plant—even those with older equipment. When looking at the new generation of equipment, it is important to understand the role and capability of the associated software.

If as a printer you expect to do variable data printing beyond the simplest or mail merge approach, variable content preparation and the digital front end (DFE) are software-centric functions—you need to see what is available. Ask about it. The most successful variable data printers employ a combination of IT specialists and creative copywriters. Don’t let anyone tell you that complex variable imaging is as easy as ‘falling off a log.’ If you’re going to go the complex route, be sure that you know what you’re getting into.

MIS Software

Effective and full scope use of Management Information Systems (MIS) has continuously lagged behind their full implementation potential. There will be an abundance of systems shown at PRINT, some from major MIS vendors such as EFI and some incorporated into digital press and bindery equipment. Printers with older MIS and those that are not using the full scope of an up-to-date system, ‘gotta go’ and assess what is now available. A hallmark of successful and profitable printers is running the print business based on MIS information. See general comments on software, which follow:

In addition to digital print equipment and MIS, PRINT 13 will emphasize a wide range of software. The right software can provide a competitive edge and/or enhance profitability. However, evaluating software at a show is almost impossible—so our recommendation is to look at software that may enhance your operations—BUT don’t buy software (including MIS) at a show. Identify software that you think may be helpful and invite the supplier to do a demo in your plant centered around your operations. Then and only then consider a purchase. Benchmark your software and MIS capability and utilization against what you see at the exhibition.

A Revolutionary Precipice

Printers can start their wide-format overview in what has been dubbed “the Inkjet Candy Store.” Although touted as featuring the hottest new wide-format technology, advance releases indicate the really disruptive, opportunistic wide-format products will be in individual booths and not in the Candy Store. The equipment in the Candy Store will nevertheless provide grounding in old wide-format technology for newbies to the wide-format market. It is a good place to start the wide-format show journey.

Any print equipment, but particularly inkjet wide-format that is powered by Memjet utilizing single pass imaging enabling high-speed output which is the analysts’ top ‘gotta see.’ This would include wide-format entries by Xanté, who showed a machine at last year’s GRAPH EXPO, and recently announced printers by Océ with the Color Wave 900, and Xerox’s IJP2000. This new generation of wide-format equipment prints by moving substrate past a stationary 42˝ wide series of imaging heads, i.e., a single-pass process. This supplants the much slower printers with one or two heads that traverse across the sheet a line or two at a time, i.e., a multiple pass process.

Single-pass wide-format configurations may obsolete the majority of machines that now utilize a multiple-pass process.

Additional Memjet-powered inkjet worth seeing: Colordyne will show, as they did a year ago, a single-pass label printer and Delphax is expected to demonstrate its not-yet-available elan 18x25˝ press. Both inkjet presses are based on Memjet technology.

A Bewildering Abundance

Toner and inkjet presses will be shown in bewildering abundance. To make useful sense of the plethora of digital production presses with differing capabilities, show attendees can maximize their browsing by having a clear-cut target of applications they wish to pursue. Show floor perusing may also trigger ideas for new applications.

Start digital production perusing with an overview walk-through of Canon (including Canon Solutions America/Océ), as well as Xerox and HP. Then go back to the Big Three and hone in on specific targeted products capable of producing the desired applications. This approach does require pre-show planning—there’s an abundance of information on the internet, but it does take time and perseverance to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Xerox—From Toner to IJ
Xerox, which is well known as the citadel of toner digital printing, now appears to have recognized the hole in its digital print product line and is moving to adopt inkjet technology. The late February acquisition of Impika, a French-based inkjet provider that offers proprietary inks and piezoelectric imaging heads, signals a serious move into the production inkjet market. Xerox has been reselling Impika products in Europe since 2011 but they are virtually unknown in the United States. PrintCom analysts had the opportunity to see and touch Impika output at drupa 2012 and give the output a thumbs-up.

CiPress, Xerox’s home-grown waterless technology which uses phase-changing solid polymer inks, has generated limited market appeal. Although the waterless technology eliminates the issues related to water-based inks, output quality limits the CiPress applications. However, the CiPress does have advantages on uncoated paper that printers with transactional and some less demanding graphic applications should take a look-see.

The combination of CiPress, Impika, the wide-format IPJ2000 with Memjet technology, as well as a wide range of dry toner presses, puts Xerox in a strong market position. We suggest that while in the Xerox booth, you see how XMPie is handling content. What Xerox and XMPie are up to is a ‘gotta see.’

Leading digital suppliers Canon and HP will have a fleet of new or improved color production printers in their booths. See what they have from the perspective of what you as a printer need to serve your customers.

Indigo 10000 Receives Raves
Introduced at drupa 2012, the 29˝ sheet format HP Indigo 10000 has been receiving rave reviews. Basic application is for printers producing large volumes of products ranging from marketing collateral to pocket folders, small posters, and large lay-flat books. Slow by offset press standards, the 10000 is fast by digital sheetfed comparisons. The Indigo 10000 produces 3,450 4/0 sheets/hour or 4,600 sheets using HP’s three-color enhanced productivity mode (epm). Produced quality is typical Indigo. HP will show a full range of equipment that make this exhibit a ‘gotta see.’

Canon, now incorporating its acquired Océ range of inkjet equipment, will feature the Océ ColorStream 3000 series which provides a modular growth path from a monochrome ColorStream running at 157 fpm to a five- or six-color machine running at 417 fpm. An interesting series for the digital print ‘newbie.’ Océ’s Prisma software, their invisible security inks and MICR capability open up a range of opportunistic applications. Canon will introduce several paper company partnerships with sheets ranging from 100 percent recycled inkjet treated stocks to mechanical papers for books.

Ricoh—A Smorgasbord Array
Giving the Big Three a run for the market, Ricoh, which includes the acquired IBM inkjet and related products, is continuously upgrading its offerings. In addition to the rollfed inkjet InfoPrint 5000, Ricoh will demonstrate four toner production color cutsheet digital presses, a black-and-white sheetfed and two wide-format machines, all supported by innovative software. Ricoh also offers a variety of finishing features including complex folding and inline trimming, GBC punching and ring binding capabilities. An interesting array for the smorgasbord commercial printer.

Xeikon—Pushes the Old and Touts the Future
Xeikon, one of the original digital press pioneers along with Indigo, introduced digital printing at Ipex ’93. Recently focusing on the label and packaging markets, Xeikon has settled into a comfortable second tier marketing position. At PRINT 13 Xeikon will exhibit its 8000 presses, based on dry powder electrophotography with LED array imaging, in perfector configurations with a 20.5˝ wide web that can run up to 230 ppm.

Xeikon will also tout its under-development liquid toner Trillium technology with samples and presentations. According to Xeikon, Trillium is a technology, not a product. The hope is that Trillium embedded in a new range of products will be competitive with inkjet and catapult Xeikon back into being a diversified top tier provider. U.S. beta is on track for a Q1 2014 test. Also at PRINT Xeikon will show its flexo CtP. Overall the Xeikon booth is worth a showgoers, ‘look-see’.

Riso—The Fastest
Riso, which claims to offer the world’s fastest full-color cutsheet digital printer with its ComColor 9050 that runs at 150 11.7x16.5˝ sheets per minute, is a small footprint press especially suitable as a digital entry level machine. At PRINT, Riso will introduce a new ComColor digital printer series but what grabbed PrintCom’s attention is their print-to-mail approach which prints envelopes and inserts, folding, enclosing and sealing in one system, i.e., it is a printer, folder and inserter in one unit.

The Hybrid Advantage

Hybrid printing combining offset sheetfed or web offset with digital on a single press is receiving a raft of attention because it is a way of adding variable information to otherwise static content. It is an effective way to extend the life of existing offset equipment while offering an improved printed product to the print buying customer. Installing inkjet on a press does require offset and digital knowledge and installation skills. Kodak, the leading supplier of inkjet hybrid systems, will have a small booth at PRINT, but no equipment. You can get the real skinny on digital installations on an offset press from Adphos North America.

Paper—A Critical Element
Contrary to popular belief, there are a myriad of digital print-compatible paper stocks available. Printers pursuing digital print equipment should specifically ask questions about exactly what paper stocks a machine is certified to run. Get take-home samples—use them with key customers to verify the acceptability of image quality on specific stocks.

According to PaperSpecs, there are a huge number of available digital suitable papers; check their Website—‘the fly in the ointment’ is that specific stocks must be certified by a press manufacturer as workable on their equipment.

Postpress—The Overlooked Opportunity

Integrated with the press, postpress operations are as important as the digital press. When looking at a digital press, ask about postpress coating, finishing, and binding. Many printers prefer nearline or offline postpress operations because the approach utilizes existing equipment. But inline with the press is more cost-effective and produces the final product faster. If capital investment considerations result in initially going offline, find out if inline finishing can be added later and at what cost.

Be Aware of...

• Look for the presence of color management approach and capability on show digital equipment units and, if not available because the product is still in beta, inquire the beta printers.
• A next generation of Konica Minolta bizhub series of presses in the 70 ppm print/copy output class.
• Get full cost data for any digital press you may be interested in. Digital press suppliers are notorious for obscuring real cost data, in particular ink or toner costs. While the cost per liter or pound is important, knowing the coverage is the critical item. It has a major impact on your operating costs.
• EFI has developed a postpress device that modifies the gloss appearance or sheen of dry toner output that some find objectionable.
• Have a use for monochrome digital output? Take a look at the Kern iMpress which runs at 492 fpm.
• Digital UV inkjet label press with high opacity white ink for label and specialty products from Fujifilm. Capability of integrating flexo for hybrid production and inline finishing in one pass.
• Bell and Howell will show a myriad of approaches to integrating print and mailing solutions. If you insert materials and/or just mail, they are a ‘gotta see.’
• If you are doing wide-format, GBC’s cold press sensitive Laminator Spire 11, which is 54˝ wide, may help to enhance the print results.
• Personalized and versioned maps often found in direct mail and internet promotions can be created by Iocr maps.

And there is much more at PRINT 13
PrintCom analysts have identified the technologies and products that they believe will enable print and individual printers to be competitive in a growing e-world. Implementation of many of the products being shown at PRINT 13 will require printers to change business practices, technologies and people. PRINT 13 is about change and progressive evolution.

As Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently said in an interview—“If you want to insure your extinction, fail to evolve!”


You Gotta Go and you Gotta See and you Gotta Learn and you Gotta Evolve to keep your business from becoming extinct.

About PrintCom
The PrintCom Consulting Group led by well-known consultant Bill Lamparter includes 16 of the industry's top and highly experienced consultants who contributed to the technology and product selections. The Group offers a wide range of services for both suppliers and producing printers. Printer services include productivity audits, assistance with equipment selection, and conducting due diligence for both selling and buying printers.

Source: PrintCom.