Agfa Oberon RTR3300 receives EDP award in wide format category

Agfa gets recognized for the eighth time by EDP

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Agfa
Agfa Sales manager Inkjet Niko Dheedene with 3Motion owners Wouter Mouton, Femke Helon en Gerd Mouton

Agfa’s Oberon RTR3300 inkjet printer has received the 2020 EDP Award for ‘large & wide format printing system in the category roll-to-roll printer up to 320 centimeter’.

The European Digital Press Association (EDP) reviews products introduced to the European market and grants the EDP Awards to those introductions it deems best in terms of quality, as well as value to the user, support, and service. This year’s award for the Oberon RTR3300 marks the eighth time that Agfa gets recognized by the EDP for one of its large-format printing solutions.

The EDP jury described the Oberon as a “sturdy and reliable” printer and praised a.o. its capability to print good solids in the difficult colours like Red and Black and its smart optimization of media use. It concluded that “the price performance of this printer makes it a good all-round 3.2 meter solution”.

We are proud to have our printing solutions marked with this label of excellence,” states product manager Philip Van der Auwera. “We are committed to providing complete printing solutions that enable printing companies to grow profitably. The EDP Award bears witness to the added value we provide to our customers.”

The Oberon was introduced on the market at the beginning of this year. It is a dedicated 3.3-meter high-end roll-to-roll machine that combines outstanding quality with an extensive media scope and unique ease of use. The Oberon RTR3300 hits an impressive 224 square meter per hour (2411 square feet per hour). The dual-roll option is capable of handling two rolls, each up to 1.6 meters wide, doubling the total output.

The Oberon RTR3300 covers significant media diversity and a wide range of applications. In addition to its air-cooled LED curing lamps, the Oberon RTR3300 features a unique water-cooled table that keeps the printing zone at room temperature in order to smoothly process any kind of heat-sensitive roll material. The dedicated mesh printing functionality makes printing on mesh (with or without liner) easy. The UV LED inks on the Oberon RTR3300 were optimized for flexible media and obtained the highest category of Greenguard Gold certification, which means they meet some of the world’s most rigorous chemical emissions standards.

Growing with the Oberon

3Motion is a Belgian print service provider specialized in visual communication, displays & packaging, and 3D solutions. Even in this challenging year, 3Motion manages to grow its turnover thanks to its integrated solutions approach, its flexibility, and its high-tech printing equipment. The company recently added an Oberon RTR3300 to the Agfa large-format printers it already owned, a Jeti Tauro H2500 LED, and an Anapurna H3200i LED.

We mainly use the Oberon to print banners, seamless wallpapers, and adhesives,” says Gerd Mouton, co-owner of 3Motion.“It is a reliable engine that handles long high-quality print runs. The Oberon achieves twice the speed of our Anapurna, and we can nearly double production by printing two rolls of 1.6 meter simultaneously. This high productivity enables us to cope with production peaks.” He adds, “It is very convenient that we can drive all engines through Agfa’s Asanti workflow software. Last but not least, the ecological aspect as well as a safe working environment, are also important to us. The UV LED inks used by the Agfa printers carry the Greenguard Gold certificate, guaranteeing their compliance with the most stringent norms for chemical emissions.”

2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India

Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.

The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry. While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.

The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.

Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.

Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.

Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.

– Naresh Khanna

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