Fujifilm inkjet takes on short-run offset

The Jet Press 720, which will be released at Ipex 2010 in May, is targeted at traditional commercial printers.

The B2 sheetfed press is being promoted as a ‘no click charge’ machine that will not only fit into commercial printers’ business model but also the established workflow and paper handling systems. Using water-based inks and a patented pre-coating solution, it is a serious attempt to make inkjet digital into a fully-fledged commercial short-run solution.

The Jet Press 720 was presented to the Ipex Media Summit in London last week with printed samples available for inspection, but not for taking away. It can print 180 A4 sheets per minute (2,700 B2 per hour), with the prints ready to be perfected without any drying. When combined with the lack of any plate changeover time, the 720 claims unprecedented productivity for a sheetfed digital press.

“Make-ready makes all the difference,” said Keith Dalton, director Fujifilm Graphic Systems UK. “Out customers are telling us it’s not about speed any more but productivity.”

Fujifilm estimate that between 40% and 70% of B2 jobs are currently coming in at below 2,000 sheets. It is in this sector of the market it believes the press will make its mark. Sheetfed B2 presses is the largest installed base in the industry.

Because it uses standard paper and paper-handling systems, there is no extra investment in adding the press to the traditional offset line-up. It prints a resolution of 1200dpi x 1200dpi using the Fujifilm Dimatix Samba inkjet heads.

The Jet Press was first shown at JGAS in Japan late last year but its first Western debut is at Ipex. It is commercially available now and according to Juergen Krufczyk, General Manager - Graphic Systems, Fujifilm Australia, we can expect to see the first presses here before the end of the year.