Top trio ties it all together at tradeshow

Konica Minolta, Heidelberg and Kodak team up at PrintEx to showcase seamless integration between digital, offset and workflow.

The latest innovations in commercial printing are shortly to be unveiled at next week's PrintEx. Amongst the exhibitors is a unique partnership between three industry heavyweights, demonstrating that integration is essential now more than ever as printers look for ways to better meet customer needs.

A combined 450m2 floor space will showcase Konica Minolta, Kodak and Heidelberg’s offering, with an integrated suite of products from prepress to output and finishing across the three side-by-side stands. The PrintEx showcase from the trio will enable visitors to experience the joint technologies working together to leverage the different expertise that each company brings to the partnership.

David Procter, Konica Minolta’s national manager of print production, explains: “The recent partnership between the three companies in Australia has proved very successful with high levels of customer interest in the suite of solutions it opens up to them. The inevitable next step was to showcase these offerings to our customers in a side-by-side working demonstration where they will be able to see the full range of options available.”

New opportunities
“The partnership has been a great platform for us to provide new markets with our capabilities and in turn offer our existing clients opportunities to expand into the digital market,” says Andy Vels Jensen, managing director, Heidelberg ANZ.

As printers look for opportunities to provide customers with a combination of offset and digital printing to maximise results and complete jobs cost-effectively, the partnership provides them with access to these technologies.

“The printing landscape is undergoing change as we move from broad canvassing and mass printing and publishing to targeted multi-media campaigns, from product-based marketing to customer needs-based marketing,” says Adrian Fleming (pictured), managing director, Kodak Australia & New Zealand. “This requires consistency of messaging at every touch point, from inbox to mailbox. Rather than seeing this as a daunting prospect, we can help print professionals to profit from this change.

“At PrintEx we’ll show visitors how to leverage the latest digital solutions to offer new services that deliver a greater return on marketing investment — and build new revenue streams for their business.”

Konica Minolta, Kodak and Heidelberg firmly believe that in order to offer customers the most innovative solutions, the ability to integrate products and services is essential.

“Whilst we are currently leading the industry with this partnership, we expect to see competitor digital print suppliers collaborating with other offset suppliers in the future. No one supplier can meet all the demands of a professional print shop, and the full focus needs to be on providing the end user with the best solution,” says David Procter.

Andy Vels Jensen (pictured) continues: “Print is far from ‘dead’, but in order to remain viable we need to embrace new technology across the printing process. We are convinced that there is a profitable future in printing and the industry as a whole needs to look at ways of doing things better and smarter. That is essentially what this partnership is offering customers, and an exhibition like PrintEx is an ideal vehicle for print professionals to start investigating the options.”

On show at PrintEx
Industry professionals visiting PrintEx will have the opportunity to view the integration of the three suppliers’ products operating in a live print setting. The side-by-side stands will demonstrate the latest technology and customised workflow to suit all business requirements from input to output in order to meet the demands of clients both now and in the future.

“Visitors will experience the full spectrum of offerings, from seeing a job submitted into workflow, to being proofed on the screen and printed on digital and offset presses, and then finally being finished to a high specification,” explains David Procter.

The latest offerings from Kodak to be on display at PrintEx will be the Kodak NexPress SE Digital Colour Production press with full upgrade to the latest NexPress SX Digital Colour platform incorporating the long sheet feeder, the latest release of Kodak Prinergy workflow and Insite portal solutions.

Heidelberg will demonstrate capabilities across prepress workflow, digital and offset printing, and finishing solutions at PrintEx; profiling how these elements link together to best streamline the printing process. On display will be the latest Suprasetter CTP device with Prinect Workflow, a Speedmaster SM52 Anicolor Press, the new Polar 80 and 66 Guillotines and Stahl folding equipment.

Konica Minolta will showcase a refreshed product line up at PrintEx. As examples of the most cutting edge digital technology available in the marketplace, the stand will profile how they work in parallel with offset printers and integrate seamlessly in a commercial printing environment.

For the first time at an Australian trade show, the bizhub PRESS C6000 Professional, bizhub PRESS C7000 Production and bizhub PRESS C8000 will be featured. In addition the new bizhub PRESS C70hc will be unveiled, with the bizhub PRO 1200 and bizhub PRESS C7000 PROx also on stand.