Home-grown technology will take the stage over in London at Ipex 2014, with Rapid-X Digital showcasing its latest Australian-made digital label presses. With just three weeks until the main event kicks off, the Rapid team will be running to see if they can officially debut the brand new XL220 alongside the X1, X2 and D2 die-cutter and laminator already ear-marked for the show.
The showing is a solid encore for the Australian manufacturing business, after first launching its Memjet-powered press back at Ipex 2010. It was around this time four years ago that Nick Mansell, general manager, Rapid-X Digital, was given the official green-light to incorporate the groundbreaking memjet technology, triggering a mad-dash to deliver that first X1 press to the show on time. Mansell not only hit his deadlines and debuted the home-grown system on schedule, but within hours he had also made the world's first graphic arts memjet press sale fresh off the stand. In the intervening years, Mansell has been back in the lab and cooked up some new treats.
- Sneak peek at the XL - Nick Mansell and Jack Kenworthy (engineer)
"The past four years has flown by and we have continuously improved the features and introduced new models and finishing options. We are delighted to be at Ipex again on the ITE stand," said Mansell.
The equipment will be showcased by Rapid's European distributor, Impression Technologies Europe (ITE), which can be found at stand S1-F095. Roy Burton, managing director, ITE, confirms that the Rapid X1 and X2 will be up flying the flag, along with the Rapid D2 die cutter and laminator and UW1 unwinder and RW1 rewinder. Since the Ipex 2010 launch, more than 250 Australian-made Rapid X presses have gone out the door, with a growing range of finishing options.
According to Mansell there's still some time to go in the workshop but he is hopeful that the recently announced XL220 will be also make it to London for an Ipex airing. Expected to hit the market this month, the first XL is already off the production line and will go in with a beta customer in the coming weeks. The new "all-in-one" press fuses digital and flexographic technology to even better cater to emergent short-run markets, and debuts touch-screen simplicity for the Rapid range.
Mansell is the inaugural Graphic Arts Technology Innovator (GATI) winner, awarded at PacPrint 2013 for his cutting edge work on the expanding Rapid range.