NexPress 2100 Press Wins Prestigious 2002 InterTechTM Technology Award

The Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (GATF) has announced that the NexPress 2100 digital production color press will be honored with a prestigious InterTechTM Technology Award, which honors excellence in innovative technology for the graphic communications industry.


The Nexpress 2100

The NexPress 2100 press was developed by NexPress Solutions LLC, a joint venture of Heidelberg Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) and Eastman Kodak Company, and is sold exclusively through Heidelberg.

Nominated by three Heidelberg customers with a NexPress 2100 - Cohber in Rochester; Photobition in New York; and RT Associates in the Chicago area - the digital color press was cited for combining the “reliability, durability and consistent high image quality of an offset printing press, with the flexibility, convenience and quick turnaround of a printer.”

“This non-proprietary front-end system is what the industry needs to make digital printing a reality and propel the growth of variable data printing,” one judge said.

GATF, which has sponsored the InterTech Technology Awards for the past 24 years, stipulates that the award go to recently developed technologies with a proven industrial application that is expected to have a “major impact on the graphic communications industry over the next five years.”

“I believe the NexPress 2100 is positioned to have a significant and positive impact on the growth of digital printing,” said Frank Romano, Roger K. Fawcett Distinguished Professor of Digital Publishing, Rochester Institute of Technology.

Romano, who recommended the NexPress 2100 for the GATF award, cited the process NexPress used to develop its technology, especially “customer councils,” which pulled together a broad cross-section of customer segments that provided input into the development cycle before any designs were put to paper. “All vendors test their ideas with customers, but the NexPress customer councils struck me as an innovative approach that led to an innovative press.”

In addition, Romano agreed with the InterTech judges decision to honor NexPress for basing the machine’s architecture on open industry standards - particularly the ANSI-approved PPML/VDX open standard for variable data printing.

Developed from the drawing board to the market in just four years - in an industry with typical cycle times of eight to 10 years - the revolutionary press features more than 300 patented innovations, along with thousands of additional patented ideas and technologies inherited from its parent companies.

The InterTech judges praised Heidelberg and Kodak for their collaboration, noting that it allowed NexPress to deliver “on the long-awaited promise of digital color printing technology.”

The NexPress 2100 press is a sheet-fed, full-color, auto-perfecting system that produces 2100 full-color, A3+ sheets per hour at 600 multi-bit dpi.

“Printers can expand their capabilities to produce higher-value, more relevant printed pieces for their customers and generate higher profits,” stated GATF’s press release announcing the awards.

The InterTech Technology Awards will be presented on Nov. 16, 2002, during the GATF/PIA administrative meetings at the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans.

About NexPress Solutions LLC
NexPress Solutions LLC is a joint venture of Heidelberg, a world leader in the development and manufacturing of solutions for the whole print media industry, and Kodak, a world leader in imaging and digital color technology. It was created in 1998 to develop, manufacture and market digital production printing solutions and materials. The NexPress 2100 press is distributed and serviced around the world exclusively through Heidelberg.

For further information, contact Peter Foley via e-mail peter.foley@ap.heidelberg.com