Digital printing at drupa came in several flavours: almost ready, being released for sale in early adopter markets, and lastly, presses that have established significant footprints and are ready for sale to most markets including India. Many Indian printers are keen to buy a sheetfed inkjet production press and the B1 presses in this category, the Landa S40 or the Heidelberg Primefire 106 are not yet ready and not likely to reach even the early adopter markets till sometime in 2017. However, in the B2 category the Komori Impremia IS29 (essentially the same machine as the KM Accurio) was booked by an India customer although there is no established base for this machine beyond its beta sites. Meanwhile the Fuji Jet Press 720S B2 inkjet press already had around 70 installations around the world at drupa time a number that we expect has already gone up, and this press also attracted quite a bit of serious interest at drupa.
SM Ramprasad, managing director of Fujifilm India says that the FujiJet Press 720S attracted, “a pleasantly surprising number of customers” at drupa 2016. He says that customers, typically high quality commercial printers were interested in the press because of its high quality output that at the very least matches offset and in some cases exceeds offset printing. Of these “more than 50 prospects,” Ramprasad says many are high quality commercial printers who are looking at high-end print on demand and ‘ultrashort runs’ of products such as coffee table books. He says they are also attracted by the Jet Press 720S’s ability to print on thicker substrate from 300 to 600 gsm boards and even on corrugated sheets and canvas. “Indian customers are pushing very hard,” he says. While some of the details of pricing and servicing and logistics are still being worked out by Fujifilm, Ramprasad indicates that Indian customers are quite undaunted by the pricing structure and one or two Fujifilm Jet Press 720S could be installed in India in the current financial year – that is, before 31 March 2017.
Enhanced for drupa
Launched as a technology concept at drupa 2008 as the Jet Press 720 and commercialized at drupa 2012 the press has been continuously improved in terms of up-time. A new bar code system for variable data production and new modular Samba printheads were added in 2014, while the ability to handle heavier-duty carton board stock was introduced in late 2015.
The latest generation of Samba print heads form the heart of the single-pass system used for high performance and stable jetting. The wide-gamut Vividia water-based pigment ink is applied with Rapic anticoagulation technologies to achieve ultra-sharp printed results on a wide range of printing papers. New features that enhance super sharp quality include extended FM screening optimized for inkjet and an automatic ‘On-the-Fly’ image compensation function that controls ink deposition inconsistencies. In addition, the Jet Press 720S has received ISO / DTS15311-1 and Toy Safety approval, and benefits from advanced environmental performance thanks to the deinkability of the inks (the ISO standard for this is under preparation).
At drupa 2016, Fujifilm showed that press uptime has been improved by a further 20% using software upgrades which have improved its efficiency and job handling capability. In addition to being able to print on heavier duty carton stock, the ability of the Jet Press 720S to print on canvas media has further widened the application capability of the press. Also shown at drupa was Fujifilm’s XMF 6 Workflow and APPE-based RIP with improvements to more effectively communicate with online order and management information systems and improved management of the Jet Press 720S alongside existing offset presses for better press utilization and more effective control. XMF 6 is the first implementation of Adobe’s Mercury engine, an automatically scaling multiRIP that enables complex VDP files to be rendered and loaded faster than digital press speeds.
