For some time now, inkjet has held out the promise of huge business benefits over conventional print processes. The improvements to conventional offset – with emphasis on unit-cost reduction through multi-unit sheetfed and high-pagination web, together with high levels of automation – have boosted productivity, but have not expanded the functionality of print in the way that digital can, with its ability to personalise or version print runs.
Many of the major graphic arts suppliers, including Agfa, Fujifilm, Dainippon Screen, Kodak and HP, have made significant investment in inkjet product development over the last couple of years.
Breakthrough sectors
The first commercial success for colour inkjet has been in transactional mail, spearheaded by Kodak Versamark. This uses fast continuous-drop technology with water-based inks to print statements and bills through the 22.8cm wide heads. Versamark users such as DSTi and Astron are printing 16m colour pages per month per machine, at a rate of 1,000ppm.
The market is changing with the development of the so-called ‘transpromo’ sector, which combines both transactional and promotional functions. With limited quality at these speeds, colour is used to catch the eye rather than show itself off.
In the fast colour-inkjet sector, Kodak is joined by Dainippon Screen with the Truepress Jet520. This fuses Screen prepress and workflow with piezo drop-on-demand heads from Seiko-Epson. The Jet520 is a 52cm-wide web-fed press that prints up to 64 metres per minute, or 210ppm A4, using water-based pigmented inks. Cost is comparable with the total cost of ownership of other inkjet solutions, and as for print quality, early samples look better than Versamark.
Even higher-quality print, including direct mail is being produced by Real Digital. Real has a bespoke fixed-head inkjet web press, and prints using UV-curing inks in sections of 630x1,500mm. The heads used are made by ToshibaTec, under licence from Xaar.
Another approach comes from French developer Inov-Media, which launched its Jet7Pro at Ipex last year. The Jet7Pro is essentially a B1 sheetfed press with its inking mechanism replaced with scanning Seiko-Epson inkjet heads. The latest version is the Jet7 Quattro that uses faster Xaar heads. The machines can be supplied with different numbers of heads, which scan across the sheet and print bi-directionally at resolutions between 360 and 720dpi. Speed varies according to the number of engines supplied; with four engines the Jet7 Quattro prints 160 B1 sheets per hour at 720dpi up to 400 sheets per hour at 360dpi. Jet7s can be supplied with between two and 20 engines.
Printhead design
Xaar has recently launched its latest printhead design, the Platform 3. This has 1,000 nozzles in two rows providing an imaging swathe of 70.5mm, giving a native 360dpi resolution with eight grey levels that provide colour print of process quality. Xaar claims consistency and stability are much improved over previous – and current rival – models. The first commercial version of the Platform 3 head is from Canadian manufacturer PAT Technology, which launched a range of digital coaters at the end of 2006.
Xaar believes the Platform 3 heads will be the enabling component of a new generation of high-end colour printers. Xaar’s chief executive, Ian Dinwoodie, predicts that by 2008, 167ppm high-quality inkjet digital presses will compete with the fastest toner presses, with the potential for a trebling of speed in the following years. Following this, Dinwoodie says, there will be a 500ppm inkjet press by the end of 2010 offering the advantages of non-impact inkjet to sectors such as packaging. The Platform 3 heads offer advantages all round: for end-users, the heads can handle a wider range of heavier substrates, while printers get the cost-benefit of only paying for colorant used rather than a fixed click charge, and are not tied to a single manufacturer for consumables.
Fujifilm’s first significant announcement, following its purchase of Pimatix last year, was VersaDrop technology. This allows variable drop sizes to be jetted and is claimed to improve quality over greyscale printing. Pimatix says that controlling the size, shape and placement of drops gives smooth tonal variations and extremely fine features. Commercial systems should be available later in the year.
While offset, gravure and flexo print will not be overtaken by inkjet in the next five years, they will certainly be augmented by it. As with most new technology, users face a difficult choice of being a pioneer or missing a potential opportunity. There are users currently exploiting the benefits of the newest technologies, including Real Digital and SMP Group with the hybrid Agfa-Thieme MPress. Printers should be delving into the capabilities of the new technology and how they might fit with the requirements of their customers, then conducting realistic appraisals.
The direct mail, packaging and point-of-sale sectors will all benefit from inkjet’s ability to vary data on a page-by-page basis. Most printers use inkjet already for proofing and are familiar with the technology: what they want is for it to provide the quality of a contract proof at the speed of the fastest Versamark, at the unit-cost of offset but without its set-up costs, on a wider range of formats and substrates. It sounds like a long list, but inkjet offers potential solutions – sooner than you might think.
INKJET ALTERNATIVES: OTHER DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES
In the race to bring an offset-beating technology to market, inkjet dominates. But other manufacturers are working on digitally-driven inkjet alternatives.
• Xerox is yet to enter the industrial inkjet market despite its Phaser system. Phaser uses wax blocks that are melted and inkjetted, drying on paper.
• Ricoh is also pursuing alternatives to inkjet inks and has developed a gel formed of waterproof, fast-drying, viscous ink that does not smudge, blur or bleed. However, the first models are aimed at office applications rather than commercial print.
• While there are whispers about a new family of 450ppm toner printers from Xerox there have been few speed or format improvements from the main electrophotographic systems.
• Hybrid systems, in which inkjet is twinned with conventional print technologies, are becoming more popular in some sectors, particularly converting and packaging. Printing directly onto heavyweight rigid surfaces, inkjet offers significant advantages in packaging. Many systems are developed by specialist integrators as bespoke conversion lines integrated into manufacturing processes, often under non-disclosure agreements.
