Digital Print on Drupa

What we could clearly experience on drupa: If a stand was crowded with people it was related to digital print! This is mainly true for HP and of course for the drupa highlight nanographic printing from Landa were you had to make reservations days in advance for the perfect show of Mr. Landa celebrating himself and his ideas. The presses which control panels look a bit like huge IPhones made some people talk about Landa being the Steve Jobs of the digital press manufacturers.

Picture showing a Landa S7 press in B2 format (53x75cm); (source: Landa web page) There is definitely some ingeniousness behind the whole story starting with the design of the presses, knowing that printers have always been great fans of Apple products (even before IPhones and IPads). What is consequently more obvious than designing a press as well as the operation interface in Apple style? The huge touch screen seems to make the press easy to use. You just have to push the green print bottom on the left top side and the press immediately starts to produce excellent quality with high cost efficiency. No special inkjet papers required and the nanographic inks are low cost and environmentally friendly delivered just as powdered pigments in plastic carriers which are filled and dispersed with tab water. When empty you simply put them into recycling. Landa offers products for commercial, packaging as well as publishing end uses basically with the same products in different sheet/web sizes. Main difference to HP: According Landa you can use the nanographic presses for your current mainstream jobs as it makes due standard substrates and low priced inks digitally printed products more profitable also in a larger number of copies (unmatched total cost of ownership). I assume that there is also quite a share in less labor cost as it might not need a highly educated printer to press the green start bottom. The printing principle is through out the product line the same: 4-8 Inkjet heads spray the nano ink on a heated conveyor belt (similar to an offset blanket). The water evaporates and the pigments unite to a transferable film/picture far thinner than a conventional ink layer, which is applied to the substrate (see also [Link] ). The handling of the press seems (as described) very simple. A single operator can, according Landa, run several presses, which sounds especially for Central European print company owners to good to be true! The presses provide according the preliminary specifications comparably high press speeds (e.g. 13.000 sheets/h maximum on a S10 or 200 m/min on the web presses W5 and W10), but this is only valid for paper. Folding carton reaches a max. speed of 6.500 sheets/h (single side Hans Jrgen Lind Technical Service and Intelligence Manager Sappi Fine Paper Europe

printed). If you consider double sided printing it reduces former max. speed down to half. Beside the W50 the web presses do only offer single side printing and the W50 is with a maximum web width of 560mm comparably small. What also remains to be seen is if the print quality matches the expectations of the customers. The statement of Landa was clear: Sharper dots compared to offset and conventional inkjet as the ink does not penetrate into the substrate. But also: Technology is not ready yet! (Landa: I was asking to postpone drupa for some months but they did not want to). What we have seen from distance when they have printed was in my eyes not really sellable! Not yet?! First presses will be delivered End 2013. We will see how they perform! Also Landa aligning with HDM, Komori and manroland sheetfed is an interesting move were we might see/hear some interesting stuff in the next one or two years. The HP approach as second biggest exhibitor on drupa was different: Far less marketing show than Landa but also far more really working tangible presses producing sellable printed sheets. It appeared to me that the HP stand in Hall 4 was the stand with the most visitors on drupa. When ever passing through or visiting our colleagues on our Sappi booth I saw crowds of people either being toured through or watching on of the plenty shows and demos. HP has split its booth up to 3+1 main topics: Commercial Print, Labels and packaging as well as Sign and Display. Together with partner PitneyBowes additionally the area Publishing, Direct Mail and Transactional Printing was covered. I was focusing on the Commercial Print where various Indigo Presses (from Indigo 3550 to Indigo 10000) could be seen in shows and demos. The new Indigo 10000 is maybe the most interesting.

Picture showing an HP Indigo 10000 press in B2 format (53x75cm); (source: HP web page) The 10000 is part of a portfolio of new presses to be presented by Indigo at drupa. With its B2 sheet size (53x75cm) the new Indigo 10000 more than doubles Indigos prior maximum throughput. The maximum speed is 4.600 sheets/h (EPM-mode) or 3.450 sheets/h in full color mode comparably quick but not as fast as the Landa press. According HP the new sheet size enables not just greater productivity (and lower running cost per print) it also opens up the ability to digitally print highmargin specialty applications such as pocket folders, tri-fold marketing brochures, book covers, and even small posters. But also here is to say that Landa promised not only to be faster but also offers with the S10 the almost doubled sheet size! But contrary to Landa they were printing life with samples to look at and to take away. According what I have seen in an astonishing good quality! Maybe still not as good as Offset but surely for many cases good enough. The fact that a one of my former manroland customers (Leupold in Schwabach, Germany. Main products: Display and Consumer Packaging) invested this year in an Indigo WS 6600 shows that print quality seems not to be the crucial factor any longer. Cost per copy and total cost of ownership are the main drivers and at least in the remaining pre Landa period it will play a significant role when we compare classic offset vs. digital print.

Hans Jrgen Lind Technical Service and Intelligence Manager Sappi Fine Paper Europe