IPEX 2010 Blogs - Simon Enticknap Number 4

After only a day and a half, I’ve had enough of press conferences; my left leg has gone to sleep, my brain is comatose, and my writing hand is making meaningless notes like “seamless integration”, “innovative solutions” and “market-focused mission critical systems”. One more “added-value services” and I’ll have to gnaw it off at the wrist to preserve my sanity.

And so, after the early briefing by Canon on what it plans to do with Océ (set up several steering committees apparently, which strikes me as a very British response), I make my escape from the rest of the morning’s schedule (sorry Agfa and KBA – I’m sure your news was very interesting) and seek sanctuary in the halls of the NEC (just don’t tell my publisher who’s actually paying me – not enough obviously – to listen to this rubbish).

It’s remarkable, in fact, the disjunction that exists between the stuffy confines of the press conferences and what’s happening on the exhibition floor, like two separate worlds existing in parallel, connected but distant to each other. The first impression is that there are a lot of people at this show; the organisers claim to have made 71,000 pre-registrations so if all those turn up plus some more, it’ll be a good result.

It’s particularly crowded down at the digital end where all the new inkjet and toner presses are located. Ipex has conveniently organised the show into different areas – prepress and digital solutions, presses and ancillary equipment, post-press and converting – which certainly makes it easier to navigate and focus on what’s important for each visitor, but which also has the effect of making the industry seem even more disconnected and dispersed. Wandering away from the digital crush, the crowds in the aisles thin out and there’s a very different vibe towards the more traditional parts of the show. Perhaps customers down this end know what they’re after and there’s less need to come in and look at every new digital gizmo.

Everywhere you go the printing looks fantastic – everybody’s trying really hard to look good and some of the results are amazing.

I end up on the Kodak stand where Tony Harvey from Kodak Australia is like a magician who keeps pulling new surprises out of his hat. The Prosper press is obviously a highlight but there’s a lot more as well, not least a very cool touch screen exhibit the size of a long table which allows users to grab hold of different ‘bubble’ topics as they float by and even flick them down the table like in a game of virtual air hockey. Call me shallow but I thought this was very cute – worth checking out.

Full marks to Tony too for raising the topic of flexo which hasn’t had a lot of airplay to date. Kodak are very keen on its new Flexcel Direct laser imaging system for flexo plates which eliminates chemical processing and delivers a very accurate, controlled dot profile. Kodak CEO, Antonio Perez said at drupa08 that Kodak wanted to achieve offset quality with flexo printing and the samples shown using this new laser system certainly go a long way towards that.

Steve Green, formerly in Australia but now based in Shanghai, was also on-hand to talk about why the Asia-Pacific region is doing so well in comparison to the rest of the world – mainly due to China and India, not surprisingly. He tells a great yarn about the Philippines election recently where every single one of 58 million ballot papers was personalised to each voter in order to cut down on electoral fraud. Every individual ballot paper was then sent out to one of the 5,000 polling stations and, because each was unique, once the ballot had been used and scanned, the voter couldn’t vote again.

It took a bank of four Versamarks, plus an extra one that was added later, three months to complete the job – a great example of a digital print application that couldn’t have been done any other way.

Moving on, it’s amazing to see how many Chinese plate suppliers have stands – I count half a dozen at least and Steve Green tells me that in China there are about 30-40 local manufacturers of plates. They have great names like ‘The Second Film Factory of Lucky Group’ and ‘Jiangsu Wanji Precision Photocopy Apparatus Co Ltd’ but you have to wonder about the quality of the product.

A brief sit-down at the KBA stand coincides with one of those remarkable make-ready demos that the offset suppliers love so much – in this case, four jobs of 500 sheets each printed on a Rapida 106 in about 10 minutes. This demo also includes what KBA calls a ‘flying job change’ whereby, on a six colour press, the spot colour on the fifth and sixth units is changed over without stopping the press, only slowing it down for a few seconds. It’s a clever use of automation but I wonder how often it would be used in real life.

At the end of the day, I wind up on the Ferag stand for a couple of quick demos. The StreamFold quarterfold unit and EasySert inserter have been combined with elements of the Job Folio product range – a new trimmer, stackers and strappers – to highlight two very neat, compact packages for handling post-press products. These systems are aimed at the mid to low volume markets, not necessarily newspapers, and offer a more cost-effective alternative to traditional mailroom systems. Ferag are responding to changes in the market as more companies take on this type of commercial work, such as supermarket catalogues, and have a need for automated systems but on a smaller scale. As usual, the Ferag equipment purrs along like a perpetual motion machine.

So after a few hours on the floor, my feet are sore and my back is beginning to ache. Now where’s the next press conference so I can put my feet up for a while?