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26 May 2012 - Australian Printer www. -grafix.com

Cover story

NOW one of the biggest developers in the printing industry, Ricoh has a portfolio that includes

colour and monochrome print engines, its InfoPrint 5000 high speed inkjet web, and wide format printers. This year’s drupa saw a 3D printer, which has Ricoh inkjet heads. The company launched its Clickable Paper, which is a kind of elegant QR code, aimed at printers looking to increase the relevance of the printed product within a cross media environment.

Speaking at the show, Kathy Wilson, general manager of Production and Business Solutions at Ricoh Australia, says, “Ricoh is looking at meeting the needs of printing businesses. Finishing integration and automation is a key to maximising efficiencies and, at this show, it is clear that Ricoh is providing inline finishing solutions that will enable printers to make the most of opportunities.”

She says, “The finishing solutions integrated with Ricoh printers allow the printer to run at maximum speed; there is no slowing down of the engines. One of the purposes of this drupa is to show various

combinations and receive feedback from printers, which will help us to provide relevant solutions.”

Hardware is not an exclusive focus of Ricoh; it has partnered with EFI for web to print and MIS. Wilson says, “Virtually everyone who came onto the stand has been asking for web to print. It is a now an important factor in commercial print, and EFI’s Digital StoreFront provides printers with a route to both get closer to their existing customers and market themselves to the bigger market.”

Ricoh is now in a relationship with Heidelberg in Australia, with the press giant now supplying Ricoh printers. Wilson says, “Heidelberg’s Prinect workflow showed a hybrid solution where a single workflow can handle the elements that are best suited to offset and those best suited to digital in an intelligent workflow.”

Environmental kudos

THE International Association of the Deinking Industry (INGEDE) has awarded accreditation to the Ricoh digital colour cut-sheet printing press portfolio and confirms that toner from these Ricoh systems

can be removed from paper during the recycling process. At drupa, all of Ricoh’s printing activity was carbon neutral as a result of using the Ricoh carbon balanced printing programme.

The Ricoh Pro C901 Pro C651 and Pro C751 presses have all met the required criteria set by the European Recovered Paper Council (ERPC) regarding the removal of printing ink from recovered paper during the paper recycling process. This allows paper mills to recycle recovered output from Ricoh colour production systems, reducing the generation of waste into the environment.

At drupa, Ricoh launched its first-ever published book: Precision Marketing: Maximizing Revenue Through Relevance. Written by marketers, the book features proven, revenue-generating case studies from international powerhouses around the world including Amazon, Fiat, France Telecom, Tesco and more.

Ricoh says that one of the biggest challenges for today’s marketers is engaging consumers in a more relevant, one-to-one customised fashion. The book offers practical strategies for launching initiatives

The message from Ricoh at drupa focused on solutions, with the print engine as a part, along with finishing, web to print and MIS. It also had a very nifty innovation: Clickable Paper

End to end solutions

RICOH has packed its digital light production printer, the Pro C751, with many of the innovations that it uses on the Pro C901.

The printer offers 1200 x 4800dpi resolution, using the company’s VCSEL (Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser) technology along with polymerised toner and oil less fusing technology. It provides broad media support, with an improved fusing unit, offering high productivity regardless of paper thickness up to 300gsm.

Ricoh claims a 180k maximum monthly volume, rating the printer at 75ppm colour or mono. A liquid cooling system enables extended and continuous printing, while it has enhanced the printer’s operator replaceable units, toner bottles, waste

toner and media. Other features include mechanical gate registration and the capability to do changes on the fly.

At the front end, the EFI E-41A Fiery Server is connected as standard. Adobe APPE technology and the latest Fiery System 9 forms the basis for the configuration of the Pro C751 series.

The printer has numerous finishing options. A folding unit provides a range of six folding options including two-old, three-fold and three-foldout. A ring binding unit can produce 23-hole punched ring bounded booklets inline up to 200 pages and applies rings in either black or white.

Two ring sizes for 50 or 100 sheets are available. A stacker unit provides an additional 5,000 sheet

output capacity and is supplied with one roll-away cart with additional available as an option.

A standard staple finisher with output stack capacity of 3,000 sheets and a 2/4 switchable hole punch, or Scandinavian 4-hole punch can be integrated. A booklet maker has an output stack capacity of 2,500 sheets with an edge trimmer available as an option.

The Plockmatic booklet maker includes an optional square folding unit, cover inserter, fore-edge trimming able to trim up to 25 sheets of 80gsm in an inline operation.

The Stream Punch ProEx can punch a full range of media types with up to 4,000,000 punched pages using heavy duty die sets.

Light printer with heavy features

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27www. -grafix.com May 2012 - Australian Printer

Cover story

involving customer data analysis and customer insight. Ricoh will donate the royalties from the book to an international non-profit organisation called Room to Read, which focuses on literacy and gender equality in education.

Wide format entry

THE Ricoh Pro L4000 wide format series had its launch at drupa. They feature the next-generation of Ricoh’s piezo-electric print heads with durable latex ink in seven colours; CMYK, light cyan, light magenta and white, offering media support on a range of substrates for applications aimed at the environmentally conscious buyer of printed signage, point of purchase and indoor and outdoor display.

Ricoh says that the aqueous nature of the latex ink means a low environmental impact, while the introduction of a white ink means that print buyers can optimise colour vividness on transparent or coloured materials.

With an output speed of up to 18.1sqm per hour, Ricoh’s debut wide format printer series offers a choice of two print widths: 1371 mm or 1620 mm. It also features multiple jetting print head technology to produce three different drop sizes at once and

as small as four picolitres in size. Its media support enables clients to order print on a wide range of substrates such as PVC, tarpaulin, synthetic paper, coated-paper, non-coated paper and textiles.

imagine. change.

THE company has opted for a new global brand tagline to express its evolving brand presence around the world: imagine. change.

The new messaging reflects a general shift toward services for Ricoh, which can be seen in the company’s ever expanding services portfolio including its highly regarded MDS (Managed Document Services), Production Printing and other advanced solutions. Ricoh’s stand at drupa 2012 will be the first time Ricoh has exhibited with the new tagline.

Shiro Kondo, Ricoh president and chief executive officer says, “The ability to change is a key element of a successful business today. Technology is changing at an unprecedented pace, and there is increasing pressure for customers to change along with it. Those who cannot keep up will be left behind. At Ricoh, we are committed to helping our customers embrace change through innovation. That is what we mean by imagine. change.”

End to end solutions

CLICKABLE PAPER, a new planned cross-media service enables consumers to point an iPhone or Android smartphone at any printed surface and receive related online content, so it has application for newspapers, magazines, direct mail, books, brochures and posters. Ricoh says that all types of digital information or services can be linked including multi-media content, web sites, e-commerce services and social networks, adding that consumers can recognise a clickable page with an easily identifiable logo.

The Clickable Paper demonstration includes a mobile app and authoring process that links on-line content to any segment or ‘hotspot’ of the printed media. The smartphone is pointed at an area of interest within a printed media, the captured image is recognized, the hotspot is identified and the relevant content is presented to the user.

At drupa, Ricoh demonstrated Clickable Paper on a variety of printed media, including a preview version of the new book, Precision Marketing, authored by Ricoh’s Sandra Zoratti, which examines real-world implementations and benefits of precision marketing. The clickable hotspots took readers to related videos, experts’ blog posts, and industry reports.

Wilson says, “Clickable Paper offers printers the opportunity to go to their customers and offer them interactive, dynamic, engaging, trackable marketing. The cloud based application with the software means that any document can have a hotspot added at any time. The hotspot will take recipients to websites where they can engage with the offer. Clickable Paper is like cross-media on steroids.”

RICOH contends that the ability to auto duplex 300gsm stock at its full rated speed of 90ppm creates a market leading level of productivity for its Pro C901 printer and three independent organisations agree.

InfoTrends has named the Ricoh Pro C901 as the leading press, by units sold in 2011, in the 301K to 999K duty cycle segment.

The colour cut sheet press was also identified as the fastest in this class in the Western Europe Production Printing and Copying Market Placements: 2008-20111 report.

Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI) announced that the Ricoh Pro C901 Graphic Arts Edition has won its PRO Award for the Mid-Production Colour category. BLI, the world’s leading independent evaluator of document imaging hardware and software chose the Ricoh Pro C901 based on an in depth review of a comprehensive set of technical criteria.

Ricoh says that innovations on the printer include its chemical PxP toner as well as its ease-of-use, reliability and flexibility.

Ricoh Pro C901 offers print quality at 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution; productivity of 90ppm, regardless

of media type, weight or when duplexing; a large paper capacity; ease of use; RIP solutions from EFI and Creo with integrated VDP capability; enhanced fusing technology that ensures toner adhesion for superior quality when printing onto thick and textured stocks up to 300gsm; consistent image quality with advanced image stabilisation, single direction development, mechanical paper registration and automatic calibration adjustments; quickly replaceable high capacity toner bottles while running; and reload and/or link media sources while printing for uninterrupted performance.

Flagship leads the market

New application

Transformyour business today for tomorrow.

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