Fujifilm has scored a landmark success with Emmerson Press installing the UK’s first Jetpress 720S. More than 70 of the B2 inkjet machines have been sold worldwide, but until now none have been sold to printers in the UK. Fujifilm has come close previously, but had never quite clinched the deal despite improvements that were introduced at Ipex two years ago.
The press has gone to an expansive minded printer that has not shied away from investment in new technology. Sales director John Emmerson says: “We’re really excited about the new business opportunities that this investment is going to provide. The improvements in makeready and turnaround times, the increased capacity, the efficiency savings and the potential to profitable print bespoke, short run jobs for high end customers are all exciting developments.”
Others will be watching closely to monitor how effectively the inkjet press delivers on these expectations. The company runs a six-unit Heidelberg Speedmaster XL75 and seven-colour Indigo 5000 series digital press. The larger format will enhance the digital offering, while lack of plates and absence of makeready will provide an alternative to B2 litho for shorter runs.
The company has been looking at a step up to B2 digital for some time. It won a job from West Bromich Albion ahead of the 2013 season which needed a B2 digital format. At the time Emmerson Press placed the work with Precision Printing, one of the few with an Indigo 10000 at the time. Business development director Nick Fincher said that Emmerson Press was already looking at B2 digital printing. “It would help us grow our business substantially,” he said at the time.
However, rather than an Indigo which would follow others, Emmerson Press has stayed true to the technology leadership that had led the company to install one of the first Indigo digital presses in 1997. Consequently it has been monitoring developments in B2 inkjet, taking in visits to the Fujifilm showroom in Brussels and to customers in Germany and the Netherlands.
“What we saw on those visits convinced us that the quality of the Jetpress 720S is unrivalled. Without that quality standard we would never have made that investment.”
The quality is a combination of the Fujifilm Dimatix print heads, used by Heidelberg in its Primefire 106, the ink (which reacts with a special precoat layer to keep the pigment on the surface of the paper), quality control scanner and drying technology. It means a thin layer of colour on the surface of the paper to ensure vibrant colour and the ability to print on standard offset papers.
With the latest version of the press, Fujifilm has addressed concerns about an ability to print variable data on both sides of the sheet, using bar codes to match the print to the digital file. However, Emmerson has casemaking and binding systems for ultra short run books, including photobooks, which need only single side printing.
Says Fincher: “We’ve been watching developments in B2 digital inkjet very closely for a number of years. We are in no doubt that than in the Jetpress 720S, we have now found a machine that help us grow our business substantially, allowing us to offer our customers the quality they have come to expect from offset, with all the time and cost savings of digital.”
Emmerson Press visited the Advanced Print Technology Centre in Brussels where Fujifilm has installed its inkjet presses to run tests on the B2 inkjet press and visited users in Germany and the Netherlands before agreeing to become the first UK user of the press.
