Xerox Pushes Boundaries Of Digital Printing At drupa 2008

Xerox, leveraging its heritage of innovation, has announced a dozen new technologies, workflow and business development resources at the ongoing printing show, drupa 2008, being held in Dusseldorf, Germany.

“By continuing to focus on xerography breakthroughs and scaling our proprietary inkjet technology, Xerox’s advantage to this marketplace is in how we help customers adopt the right technologies, workflow and services to build profitable businesses right now and far into the future,” said Anne Mulcahy , Xerox chairman and chief executive officer.

The right technology, right now

Xerox has unveiled the Xerox iGen4 Press, a highly productive cut-sheet digital press in the printing industry. The iGen4 increases productivity by 25 to 35 percent by automating operator tasks, reducing the need to interrupt the press for adjustments and decreasing overall operating costs. As a result, the iGen4 improves the break-even point between digital and traditional offset printing – making it faster and more economical to run more print jobs on digital.

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Operating at 110 pages per minute, the iGen4 creates offset and photo-quality images with consistent colour from the first print to the last. It is the ideal press for producing high-end collateral, direct marketing and photo specialty products – the type of print jobs that typically generate the most profits for print providers.

Xerox has also recently launched the Automated Colour Quality Suite Press Matching System , for new and existing users of the Xerox iGen3 90 and 110 Digital Production Presses , offering high performance plus quality that matches offset printing. These enhancements enable faster press set up, quicker time to production, greater colour stability and automated Pantone colour matching and are a perfect match for printing profitable full-colour applications that range from personalised direct mail and catalogs to marketing collaterals and photo books.

The company has also introduced an integrated in-line digital packaging solution for the pharmaceutical industry that can produce customised, variable data on each package cost effectively, without having to stop production and manage offline equipment. This solution consists of an Epic CTi-635 varnishing unit with both aqueous and UV-coating options from Xerox, a KAMA die cutter with 580 x 400mm sheet size and a stacker-conveyer unit from Stora Enso.

Innovation and emerging technologies

Xerox is also demonstrating a concept press at drupa 2008 – the Xerox ConceptColor 220. With the ConceptColor 220, users can achieve greater printing economics by getting twice the speed and twice the productivity of the iGen3 press with a single operator, saving time and labour.

By integrating two iGen3 engines in-line, it prints 220 ppm and features front and back full-colour matching and can approach a monthly print volume of up to seven million colour pages. The ConceptColor 220 builds on the tandem architecture technology of the Xerox Nuvera 288 Digital Perfecting System , a twin-engined monochrome press that also uses pass-through programming – a technology that keeps one engine running at full speed, even if the other one stops.

Xerox is also using drupa to showcase breakthrough inkjet innovations. It is advancing the technology with new modular print heads that are more reliable, low cost and scaleable. Xerox has also been developing next-generation ink in the form of ‘cured gel’ ink , which offers more ways to print on many substrates – from coated paper to plastic to aluminum.

Other new products and announcements

In addition to these new technologies and innovations, Xerox also announced the Xerox Continuous Feed Digital Web Press, the Xerox 700 Digital Color Press, the Xerox DocuColor 5000AP Digital Press, the Xerox 8254E/8264E Color Wide Format Printers , the Xerox 4112/4127 Copier/Printer and the Xerox 4112/4127 Enterprise Printing System in the lead-up to drupa.

Workflow enhancements

Advances in the integration of Xerox FreeFlow software with two leading offset workflow systems – Prinect from Heidelberg and FUJIFILM Workflow XMF – will help print providers to leverage existing offset workflows for a single point of control for both digital and computer-to-plate offset print work. In addition, FreeFlow Express to Print will bring powerful workflow automation to light production environments at an affordable price. Xerox also plans to adopt the Adobe PDF Print Engine in Xerox’s FreeFlow Print Server .