Back in the early 1990s, Canon, with a little help from EFI, was leading the digital colour print revolution thanks to its Colour Laser Copier (CLC). However, in the intervening years the market has matured and demands for higher productivity and more features saw the CLC eclipsed by rival machines.
But with its strategic aim of being the number-one player in the markets it serves, Canon was not about to roll over. Starting in 2006 with the launch of its ImagePress range, the company began fighting back in the production colour sector. Now, with the launch of the ImageRunner Advance C9000 Pro series, it has its sights set on light production, and with the other members of the ImageRunner Advance range all the way through the workgroup.
The C9000 Pro models, the C9060 Pro and the C9070 Pro, are the top of the ImageRunner range and produce 60 and 70 A4 colour pages per minute respectively.
At first glance, these two machines look very similar to the ImagePress range (although Canon says they are finished in "cashmere' beige rather than the standard shade). The manufacturer says that the C9000s are suitable for a wide range of applications covering print-for-pay, especially commercial printers taking their first steps into digital colour, and in-plant production. There has been some interest from the photobook and photoproduct sector, with the first unit in the UK going to Woking-based Repropoint for that purpose.
Printroom profit centres
Canon feels these machines will prove particularly popular in the corporate environment. "It's the workhorse of our printroom at Canon," says Canon solutions marketing manager for professional print Nikki Richardson. "There's definitely an opportunity for printrooms to become profit centres with one, and it would reduce costs massively."
One way to achieve that is producing colour marketing materials that would have previously been outsourced. Richardson says this option is appealing when combined with personalisation and the ability to produce print on demand, ensuring every document is relevant and needed.
Compared to the CLCs, the C9000 has more features that put the needs of professional print to the fore. Chief among them are the wider media range and the extended inline finishing options. The C9000 takes stocks up to SRA3, and in custom sizes a little bit bigger, and can handle a maximum weight of 300gsm. It can also cope with coated stocks as well as uncoated, helping to ensure its output looks as professional as possible. As a light production machine there are performance compromises: heavier and coated stocks dramatically slow production down by a factor of two-thirds to around 23 sheets per minute. However it's worth noting that this speed penalty is common to most light production machines rather than being unique to Canon.
The C9000's intended average monthly print volume is 35,000 A4 pages, of which Richardson says: "If you look historically at light production, that's way up."
However, maximum monthly volume on the 70ppm 9070 could be up to 350,000 A4 sheets. For comparison, an ImagePress tops out at 500,000-550,000 sheets.
Inline finishing options include an inserter, hole punch, bookletmaker with leading-edge trimmer, and a new folder, which can produce five folds including standard Z and C folds as well as a new double-parallel fold to offer more flexibility in-house.
Comfortable colour
Can you use the C9000 to produce both colour and monochrome? In short, yes. Richardson says that the machines are designed to be comfortable producing black-only pages, and the click charge is lower for a black than a colour page, but they are still designed to be primarily colour devices.
The ImageRunner uses some technologies from the ImagePress, but also introduces some further advances of its own, notably a new toner. This toner has been designed to lower the energy needed in fusing, which is one of the reasons why the power consumption of the ImageRunner is 40% lower than the CLCs it replaces. The toner is wax based, which eliminates the need for fuser oil and is also claimed to improve the sharpness of text. Compared to the ImagePress, however, the toner has a narrower colour gamut. To keep the output consistent, a system Canon calls Automatic and Reciprocal Colour Density Adjustment Technology (ARCDAT) monitors and automatically adjusts the density of each colour.
While the ImagePress range has FograCert to prove its capability for matching the ISO 12647 ‘validation printing' specification this hasn't been adopted for the ImageRunner, although Richardson adds that there's no reason why the firm may not apply for it in the future. And for customers for whom colour consistency is important, the machine can be supplied with an X-Rite i1 spectrophotometer.
Aside from the narrower colour gamut, the machine's 1,200dpi resolution and 8bit-per-dot tonal range ensures that, like the more expensive ImagePress, the quality of the output is very high.
RIP restrictions
Driving the 9000 Pro is the EFI Fiery GX300, which is available either as an external RIP or an embedded controller. Both models use the latest Fiery Command Workstation 5 software to provide a slicker and easier to use interface. Richardson says that, in some situations, as long as the demands for colour management and matching aren't too high for example, the embedded controller will be fine, whereas more demanding users would be better off with the external RIP. Even though a Creo controller is coming to the ImagePress range, there are no plans for a Creo option for the ImageRunner.
In addition to the Fiery, Canon offers its two software packages for corporate printing environments Uniflow and Helix. Uniflow provides print job tracking, auditing and analysis, while Helix offers job ticketing and can be configured to re-route a job to the most appropriate available production machine.
With the launch of the ImageRunner Pro, Canon has also worked with document software firms, including Microsoft and Adobe, to provide extended functionality for customers using their applications. One example is a plug-in to Adobe Reader that Canon has developed that enables annotation and comments to be added, which would otherwise need a full copy of Acrobat. Canon claims that this can reduce the cost for firms where many people are involved in the approval process.
The final string to the machine's workflow bow is the MEAP-plus architecture. This is a development platform that allows Canon and third parties to integrate new tools and services into the workflow.
While it might seem a throwback to the days of copiers over printers, the C9000 is available with a scanner for document input. Particularly for in-plants serving local government and any other organisation still heavily reliant on paper-trails, there are plenty of applications that call for the ability to scan in hundreds of pages. Canon's response is the Duplex Automated Document Feeder (DADF) a 200 A4-page-per-minute automated one-pass double-sided scanner that has a feeding capacity of 300 sheets.
Canon may have turned up a little late at the light production party, but it hasn't come empty-handed. The ImageRunner Pro 9000 range offers a good combination of functionality, flexibility, productivity and image quality.
"The CLC's were ready for a refresh and this is a significant opportunity to grow our market share," says Richardson. "These machines are more flexible and meet the needs of today's businesses."
SPECIFICATIONS
Speed
Uncoated stock:
A4
52-105gsm: 70ppm
106-220gsm: 35ppm
221-300gsm: 23.3ppm
A3
52-105gsm: 35ppm colour
106-220gsm: 17.5ppm colour
221-300gsm: 11.7ppm colour
Coated stock:
A4 106-180gsm 21.6ppm/35ppm
A3 106-300gsm 10.8ppm
Sheet size
Max 330.2x487.7mm
Min 100x148mm
Resolution 1,200dpi
Max capacity 9,300 sheets
Monthly volumes:
AMPV: 35,000A4
Maximum: 350,000
Workflow EFI Fiery GX300
Price From £70,000
Contact Canon UK 01737 220000 www.canon.co.uk
THE ALTERNATIVES
Konica Minolta bizhub Pro C6501
With metal construction and high build quality, the C6501 offers plenty of production power and a light price. A choice of machines and 24 finishing options means a configuration for your applications is more than likely available. The machine can run both digital and offset stock and has an optional humidifier for conditioning stock in the machine.
Speed 65ppm
AMPV 300,000
Workflow EFI Fiery or Creo
Price £71,614
Contact Konica Minolta 01908 200400 www.konicaminolta.co.uk
Océ CS665 Pro
Until Canon's acquisition of Océ goes through, the two are still rivals and the Dutch firm offers this flexible machine, which is based on Konica Minolta technology to go head-to-head with the new C9000 Pro.
Speed 65ppm
AMPV n/s
Workflow EFI Fiery
Price from £70,000
Contact Océ UK 0870 600 5544, www.oce.co.uk
Ricoh Pro C900
With the C900 Ricoh put its toe in the water of production cut-sheet colour with a 90ppm machine last year. It claims that with competitive pricing its offering is a production workhorse at a price that others would offer a light production machine.
Speed 90ppm
AMPV 240,000-400,000
Workflow EFI Fiery or Creo
Price Up to £145,000
Contact Ricoh 020 8261 4000, www.ricoh.co.uk
Xerox 700
Launched at Drupa last year, the Xerox 700 has been very successful in the light production market. Its combination of low price and high performance has made it a popular choice for printers dipping a toe in the waters of digital print.
Speed 70ppm
AMPV 20,000-75,000
Workflow Xerox FreeFlow Print Manager, EFI or Creo
Price 42,476
Contact Xerox 0870 873 4519, www.xerox.com
