The Kodak offering of the high speed inkjet Prosper 1000 for digital high volume book printing is unique and deserves a mention for being at par with the offset technology in speed and economy. Ramani Vishwanthan, VP sales, Digital Printing Solutions, Kodak explains that though the hardware remains the same, Kodak has made changes in software to enable better ink optimization and better controlled ink consumption for the high bulk paper used for printing trade books by its customers such as Repro.
The 53 gsm and 58 gsm paper that gives a puffed up look but is actually low in weight and is usually procured from Stora or Holmen has the tendency to absorb more ink, and hence needs modifications. Kodak achieved better ink control with the same inkjet head by devising software modifications. This innovation gives added capability to mass market book printers to reduce costs without changing expensive hardware by using lower gsm high bulk book papers.
Focused on print volumes
Kodak India has also installed a new NexPress 3300 with the new 36-inch paper feeder at Options Multicolor Offset in Hyderabad. This is the first install by a digital press manufacturer where the service and consumables are not based on click charges or the ‘pay-per-print’ model. The customer is buying all the consumables and spare parts like an offset press customer. “The feature is extremely attractive for the mass market player and in this case the customer printed more than 250,000 A3 equivalent prints in the first month itself,” says Vishwanathan.
Vishwanathan expands on the theme by saying, “Both for the Nexpress and the Prosper our main concentration was to increase print volumes on existing installs.” The Prosper 1000 press supplied to Repro’s Mumbai hub two years ago as a part of the three-press deal signed at drupa 2012, was the first of Repro’s Prosper press installations. To build its pan India hub and spoke presence, Repro will install two more Prosper presses, one at Delhi in 2015 and one at Chennai in the next year. In August 2013, Repro director Rajiv Vohra spoke of the company’s plan to incorporate the hub and spoke model similar to that of the book cities prevalent in Korea, China and Malaysia. The model in Mumbai has the web fed Prosper as the hub for publishers who want POD print runs of 1,200 to 1,500 books depending on the book size. For the spokes, the model has two Kodak and two Ricoh black and white cut sheet machines for POD print runs of up to 200 books. The Xerox iGen is used to produce the digital book covers in color.
Meeting productivity, quality and cost
“Repro is today Kodak’s biggest print churner worldwide,” says Vishwanathan. Repro is printing 44 million A4 equivalent impressions on the Prosper — actually producing 70 million book pages each month or roughly 30,000 books of 240 pages every month. That puts the Prosper in the category of offset presses that usually produce such volumes not for POD but for large run print orders of a few book titles.
Ganesh Khandare, head of digital operations at Repro explains, “The Kodak Prosper has met our expectations both in productivity as well as quality and cost. The Kodak operation and service team has also functioned superbly.” The team was given the responsibility of managing not only the Prosper 1000 and the Kodak unified workflow, the image imposition and the job ticketing but also managing the entire operations of the Hunkeler book finishing line. Khandare adds that the Prosper 1000 at Mumbai will complete two years of operations in February 2015.
“Drum and toner is dead”
Khandare confirmed that the planned second stage of the project at Delhi shall be executed decording schedule in the middle of 2015 and the Chennai or Sivakasi hub will be executed after the Delhi operations commence and stabilize. After all the three hubs and the multiple spokes are put in place, it will consolidate Repro’s footprint across India and help gather POD orders directly from publishers as well as print aggregators. “The Prosper is a high productivity machine but we need smaller machines too, just to optimize the workflow. We are now working to add smaller inkjet machines to our fleet and phase out some of our drum and toner printers. The first in the line for replacement is a Ricoh 4110 printer that has a speed of 110 pages a minute and a width of 19.5 inches. We are looking to replace this with an inkjet printer with a speed of 130 pages a minute and a width of anything between 17 to 21 inches and have shortlisted Fuji, OCE and Ricoh for this purchase.”
When asked aboutthe introduction of a large number of drum and toner machinesin the market place this year, Khandare says, “Repro isfocussed on reducing both theCapex and the Opex cost and none ofthisis achieved by the current generation of drum and toner printers. We are also looking at highspeed operationsthat can be achieved by continuousinkjet (CIJ) and not by the current drop on demand DOD technology that haslimitations of speed.”The future of digital printing is high-speed sheetfed inkjettechnology according toKhandare especially because inkjetis able to reduce both the Capex and the Opex cost of the machine. “Drum and toner is dead. We will no longer installthese,” asserts Khandare.
