Don’t Let Your Business Live In One Head
The Online Print Coach, Colin Sinclair McDermott, makes the argument that whether it’s yourself or a key individual in your company, relying on “invaluable” people could be the biggest risk to your business
From a predicted shift to B2 and inkjet that claims to rival offset, we take a look at some of the collaborations, launches and highlights from the return of Hunkeler Innovationdays 2023
Hunkeler Innovationdays recently celebrated a successful return to Luzern after taking a break due the pandemic. Usually running every two years, the event hadn’t run since 2019 and as a result, excitement and anticipation was high. This excitement was demonstrated in the number of visitors to the event with the show reaching a record number of attendees.
Taking place in Messe Luzern in Switzerland, the show saw a variety of solutions in digital printing and finishing demonstrated across two halls. Focusing on a theme of Next Level Automation, there were 50 practice-oriented production lines and a number of world and European firsts for visitors to explore.
Factoid: Hunkeler Innovationdays sees on average 200 tonnes of paper processed across the four-day event with 100 vendors and partners taking part in the 2023 edition
According to organisers, Hunkeler Innovationdays has more than tripled the visitors it first welcomed all the way back in 2003 when the show launched. The event acts as a meeting place/trade fair in which businesses, including Hunkeler partners, can present visitors with collaborative solutions in the commercial print sector.
The 2023 show has reported 6,700 visitors attended the event over the four days, with a total number of 14,300 visits from attendees.
Visitors and exhibitors attended from all over the world, with 21% attending from Germany, 20% attending from Switzerland, 9% from the Americas, and 7% from the UK. The remaining visitors included large percentages from the rest of Europe, Benelux, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
Print Monthly attended the four-day event where we got to speak to visitors, exhibitors, and organisers about the innovations on display, as well as the excitement around reuniting with colleagues and business partners after four years.
Hunkeler itself had a number of highlights with new technology being launched and existing technology being integrated with almost every other make of machine – as is the spirit of Hunkeler Innovationdays.
The manufacturer showcased 22 solutions with the highlight being the launch of the Starbook book production line which can process 2,000 books per hour, the equivalent of one book every 1.8 seconds.
Also launched by Hunkeler was its new DocuTrim B2+ sheet finishing device and the BSM book sorting module. Duplo was also demonstrating a B2 multi-finisher giving an indication of where this area of the industry could be heading with many predicting there will be a number of B2 presses hitting the market in months to come.
The company used its presence at Hunkeler Innovationdays to host its European show debut of the Duplo DC20K single-pass sheet-by-sheet multi-finisher (slitter, cutter, creaser) which is the manufacturer’s first foray into B2 for multi-finishers.
We spoke to Blake Roberts, export commercial manager of Duplo International about the potential for more companies to move to B2 in the future and why this may be. “We know in the digital market, HP Indigo have been at the forefront of B2 for at least a few years, and we know that that’s where the market is going.
“So why would that be? You can fit more jobs onto a sheet of paper, you might have slightly higher paper prices but it means less touch points for a printer, bigger bits of paper, and with the industry going that way, people will need to finish their work.”
Roberts continues: “Bigger bits of paper require more handling. Going through a guillotine, going through different passes and phases of finishing is less and less desirable as paper gets bigger. So that’s why we’ve got the DC20K as we’re trying to make it as easy as possible particularly to create those harder to finish products.”
Ricoh demonstrated its inkjet press capabilities with the global premiere of the Ricoh Pro VC70000e continuous feed inkjet press. The premiere of the Pro VC70000e, Ricoh says, demonstrates the company’s significant upgrades to its hardware, software, and workflow and the way they simplify production, support productivity, enhanced quality, and migration of production from analogue to digital platforms.
Software advances include production automation tools and business intelligence capabilities such as the Ricoh Pro Scanner and Ricoh Supervisor. Ricoh’s proprietary undercoating technology also broadens the range of applications suitable for inkjet.
The manufacturer says that due to the current limitations on substrate choices due to global shortages, this undercoating ability to create a standardised print surface ensures high-quality results can be produced on a variety of media.
Upgradable and interchangeable with the existing Pro VC70000 models, Ricoh says the Pro VC70000e is focused on helping production print businesses manage the current economic challenges and operational pressures.
Also on show at the manufacturer’s booth was the Ricoh Pro V20100 mono continuous feed inkjet press, a virtual showcase of the Ricoh Pro Z75 B2 sheet-fed inkjet press, and physical demonstrations of the Ricoh Pro C9200 digital press.
Ricoh also demonstrated its EDGE business development consultancy which provides printers with essential tools and training to develop business and marketing plans.
Erwin Busselot, business innovations and solutions director at Ricoh Europe, told Print Monthly at the event: “There’s a lot of people meeting again after a lot of disruption, it’s like a family, and very much like Hunkeler the company, which is still a very family orientated business. That feeling is certainly permeating on the show floor.”
At the back of Hall 1, Xerox was presenting its portfolio of digital print solutions to help print providers grow their business including its end-to-end production print ecosystem from feeding to finishing to the Xerox Baltoro HF inkjet press and Xerox Iridesse production press.
The company also demonstrated its automation workflow software including the new FreeFlow Vision with Predictive Analytics, its Care AR Assist service management software, and XMPie’s personalisation platform.
Another manufacturer which couldn’t be missed due to its vibrant yellow branding was Kodak. The company was demonstrating its recently launched inkjet web press, the KODAK PROSPER ULTRA 520 press for the first time in Europe.
Using its presence at Hunkeler, Kodak presented a roll-to-roll configuration which integrated the PROSPER ULTRA 520 press with a Hunkeler UW8 unwinder and RW8 rewinder, as well as the Hunkeler WI8 web inspection system via an open architecture interface.
Visitors to Kodak’s stand were able to witness live printing of three versions of a ‘magalog’, a hybrid between a magazine and a catalogue, demonstrating the press’ ability to print heavy ink coverage on standard offset paper at 150mpm.
Bigger bits of paper require more handling. Going through a guillotine, going through different passes and phases of finishing is less and less desirable as paper gets bigger
In addition to the PROSPER ULTRA 520, Kodak demonstrated its PROSPER 7000 Turbo Press, the world’s fastest digital press with speeds of up to 410mpm. Workflow solutions were also showcased in the form of Kodak’s KODAK PRINTERGY On Demand Business Solutions – the first end-to-end workflow solution for the print industry.
Jennifer Pennington, a paper scientist and current director of product management & OEM partnerships at Eastman Kodak Company, told Print Monthly: “The response [to the launch of the ULTRA 520 press] has been fantastic, we’ve had a lot of interest in the technology, people are excited to see Kodak back at the Hunkeler show and we’re excited to be here.
“Hunkeler is my favourite show of all the shows. I love the small collaboration aspect of the show. We have been able to communicate with all the other vendors whilst we’re here as a collaboration of the inkjet market as the whole world watches as inkjet continues to grow.”
As a company that offers both inkjet and offset printing solutions, Pennington described where Kodak stands on both of these technologies: “Kodak of course would like to be the whole solution for all of our customers both in the offset and inkjet spaces so we want to continue to offer something that our customers can use for both.
“What we do see as offset runs get shorter and shorter, the crossover point to inkjet as inkjet continues to get better and better, will be higher. So we believe that we have a solution for any of our customers who want to do either.”
Right at the entrance of Hall 1 was HP with a large presence to showcase PageWide Advantage product enhancements and solutions for the first time in Europe. Using the busy show, HP unveiled its latest innovations to the HP PageWide Advantage 2200 inkjet production press and introduced its Smart Workcell Controller advancements in automation, its Advanced Color Suite, and HP ColorPRO paper mill partner expansions ink inkjet coated, treated stocks.
With HP’s PageWide customers producing heavy volumes of high-value print across the web press portfolio, the manufacturer revealed that its PageWide commercial customers have achieved a new milestone of 825bn pages printed.
“We are thrilled for our customers’ accomplishments,” says Annette Friskopp, global head and general manager at HP PageWide, adding: “This milestone is a testament to our customers’ ingenuity to implement the versatility and productivity advantages of digital printing. We are happy to support their growth with our PageWide platforms.”
The demonstration of the PageWide Advantage shown at Hunkeler Innovationdays included a two-dryer configuration that is energy-conscious and highly efficient. According to HP, it uses approximately 20%2 less energy than the three-dryer configuration at maximum power, while printing a wide variety of unique samples.
Hunkeler is my favourite show of all the shows. I love the small collaboration aspect of the show. We have been able to communicate with all the other vendors whilst we’re here as a collaboration of the inkjet market as the whole world watches as inkjet continues to grow
Also at the event was Canon with the manufacturer launching its ProStream 3000 series, the next generation of high-speed, web-fed inkjet printers for the commercial print market. Extended media capability is a big feature of the new series with the range promising to deliver consistent offset print quality and bringing a wider selection of substrates including heavyweight paper.
According to Canon, this extended media capability makes it even easier for print businesses to migrate high-volume, high-value work from offset and legacy technologies.
Available in two models, the 80m per minute ProStream 3080 and the 133m per minute ProStream 3133, the series can produce high print quality on web widths up to 558mm and for page lengths up to 1,524mm. In order to deliver offset quality at higher speeds, the series features an enhanced drying system which uses air floatation throughout the paper path to protect the surface quality of the printed output.
“Customers worldwide have already embraced ProStream’s exceptional productivity for everything from high-margin books to premium direct mailing jobs – while benefitting from minimal waste and very high uptime.
“With the launch of the new ProStream 3000 series, we’re further expanding this successful platform, delivering speed, efficiency, and media versatility printers need to energise their growth.
“The enhanced productivity on a number of applications means that users can now confidently migrate even more offset and other printed work to digital on-demand, reducing turnaround, slashing makeready time and waste, making today’s shrinking run lengths more profitable, and meeting brand owners’ demands for shorter time to market.”
Pixartprinting Group in Italy is the first company to have a ProStream 3000 installed alongside its pre-existing line-up of three ProStream 1800 printers.
Over in Hall 2 and Intec (part of the Plockmatic Group) was showcasing its new digital die-cutting system for the first time. The ColorCut SC6000 is a larger-format version of the popular SC5000 digital die-cutting system and has an expanded size capability of 340 x 710mm which enables it to handle significantly longer printed substrates.
Described as an “on-demand digital sheet cutter”, the machine requires no physical cutting dies or time-consuming set-up costs and is compact and free-standing. Blending flatbed and sheetfed technologies, the SC6000 combines ultra-reliable feeding with an instant job retrieval system, and high-speed cutting and creasing.
Ideal for digital die-cutting packaging, point-of-sale items, lightweight card projects, and labels, the system utilises an eighth generation Vision3 CCD camera to read and retrieve cut files for every sheet. ColorCut Pro Production Studio software is also supplied as standard.
As well as the launch of the SC6000, Plockmatic was also showing the latest version of the Morgana DigiCoater Pro 400 using a unique coating and LED curing system, alongside the Morgana VFL feeder, and on the Canon booth inline to an ix3200 printer.
The manufacturer also had its DigiFold Pro XL creaser/folder and was previewing an updated version of its PowerSquare two knife trimmer.
With the theme Next Level Automation, there was a strong focus on integration of software with hardware. Whilst not at the event with its own physical presence, Solimar Systems was on hand partnering with vendors such as Screen and HP to show how its software solutions can be integrated to enable maximum efficiency. We caught up with Jamie Walsh, regional sales manager of Solimar to find out more.
“The idea for the Hunkeler event was to support HP and Screen to demonstrate the capabilities that we bring outside of the hardware sales. So this includes utilising software to drive efficiencies, to capture volume, and increase production return on investment. So we have two slightly different messages.
There’s a lot of people meeting again after a lot of disruption, it’s like a family, and very much like Hunkeler the company, which is still a very family orientated business. That feeling is certainly permeating on the show floor
“With Screen our message is very much around the integration with aqueous front-end controller that they provide which we use our SoliTrack product to capture print files and then deliver them directly into aqueous in the most efficient manner. So we do a lot of PDF optimisation because the Screen devices are dependent on PDF, we optimise those files and make sure that they’re ready and in the best possible format for print.”
Walsh continues: “At HP, we are focusing quite heavily around the ready PDF product again which I very much about optimising the PDF files, ensuring that when they hit that front-end that there’s no errors, all of the resources are there, fonts aren’t missing, images have been corrected, it’s about making sure that their devices are as productive as possible.
“The whole idea of our workflow software is to remove manual touchpoints and take hands off work which reduces costs, improves the ROI again, so everything we do at Solimar is trying to automate tasks, take away the heartache and pain that people feel of manual tasks.”
Hunkeler Innovationdays will return to Messe Luzern in 2025 from February 24th to 27th.
