manroland to prosper with inkjet in Australia

Steve Dunwell picks up the Kodak agency for the Prosper inkjet heads for web presses.

“It’s fits in very well with our value-add philosophy for printing,” said Dunwell, managing director, manroland Australia, announcing the agency. “We signed the agency at Ipex and we‘re working closely with the Kodak people on training and backup.”

 The S10 Imprinting System utilises the industry leading Stream technology inkjet head to add variable data, especially to web presses. While initially it is expected to be single colour the technology is capable of imaging at high-speed in full colour.

Part-page and even full-page colour print inline on large web press opens up the market for direct mail, catalogue, transaction, magazine and newspaper printing. With the largest web press installed base in the country, manroland is ideally placed to utilise the technology.

“We’ve been talking with our customers and they are very excited about the prospect. They can see the usefulness of it, now we have to work out the business plans,” said Dunwell. “In terms of initial operations we will be able to use our existing sales and technical people.”

Steve Venn, Managing Director, Kodak Australia said "We are very excited abou this new partnership, as the agreement is a great opportunity for Kodak to extend its reach into the web-fed print market. A key attribute that attracted us to manroland was their experience in different channels. They are well known for delivering top results and we are very excited about the opportunities that they will offer.”

The Stream printheads operate at 600dpi in 10.56 cm swathes at speeds of up to 304 mpm. Using pigment-based ink it has the ability to transform an offset web press into a VDP capable unit.