Finishing - Digital

Digital print advances will create many new finishing opportunities. The finishing expert of the near future will truly have to "think outside the box" to be able to create products in new and innovative ways.

Years ago, I had listened to presentations on the personalization possibilities that digital print would bring to the newspaper industry. So far, those predictions have not come to pass. As inkjet continues to evolve (and gets faster), this market may finally evolve.

West Chester, PA-based Anro Inc. has placed an order for the Highcon Euclid digital cutting and creasing machine. The Highcon Euclid will join Anro's digital printing line-up, allowing the company to offer its customers a one-stop shop; faster speed to market, greater flexibility and shorter-run packaging.

Building on this year’s SGIA Expo theme of “The Full Spectrum of Specialty Imaging Technology and Equipment,” xpedx will feature a large collection of substrates and equipment for digital and wide-format printing.

This week, Structural Graphics presents several designs that include Web keys that the company has produced for clients across multiple industries, including insurance, pharmaceutical, travel and entertainment and automotive.

At the SGIA Expo to be held October 23-25 in Orlando, FL, Esko will introduce a new Kongsberg digital finishing platform when it demonstrates the Kongsberg C64 cutting table. The company will also display its new i-cut Production Console software interface for operating Kongsberg tables.

This week, Structural Graphics presents an interactive direct mail piece that was created for client Iggesund to promote the company's Invercote papers.

So, was there any new "breakthrough" in finishing technology presented at PRINT 13? Not really. What we did see were more finishing systems that are better integrated with digital print. This is a trend that has continued over the years as digital printers have gotten faster. Almost all high-volume finishing now starts from the printed roll (or the printer). The goal is to make this an end-to-end solution that can be run by a single operator in the best case.

The world debut of the Bourg Booklet Maker ExPress will take place at PRINT 13 in the HP booth, #1241, where it will be presented operating with an HP Indigo 7600 digital press. It was developed by C.P. Bourg in collaboration with HP to offer fully integrated digital finishing capabilities to users of HP Indigo 7000 series digital presses.

At PRINT 13, Standard Finishing Systems, together with partners Horizon and Hunkeler, will unveil the Smart Binding System, a new lean book manufacturing process that solves many of the challenges inherent in short-run, roll-fed and cut-sheet book production.