2022 ought to have been an Ipex year. Instead first Printing United and then Igas have tried to take its slot in the exhibition calendar.
Both shows attracted a similar number of visitors, though to be close to 30,000 for the event in Las Vegas, and known to be 27,192 for the Tokyo exhibition. Both shows attracted a number of product launches, led by the HP Advantage 2200 in the US.
This was trumped by the first appearance in public of Ricoh’s Z75 B2 inkjet press (samples had been on show in the US), by the announcement of a B2 toner press from Fujifilm, by a swathe of product developments from Horizon and full robotic plate loading for RMGT.
The eye catching announcement was of a B2+ press from Fujifilm. It has no name yet but will surely be part of the Revoria brand as this covers its toner products and digital workflows. It suits a different audience to inkjet the company explains and one that has been used to Fujifilm’s existing toner products. As these have not been sold separately in much of Europe, including the UK, some adjustment may be needed.
Others have shied away from going wider with toner printing in the past pointing to problems with consistent imaging and toner delivery across the width and have instead focused on printing on longer sheets. However, HP Indigo has been successful with its B2 machines which sell well to existing users of the liquid toner technology.
Fujifilm also announced a continuous feed inkjet press which is for the Asia Pacific region only and is aimed at the transactional market.
Horizon was the biggest exhibitor at the show and demonstrated the StitchLiner MkIV with a digital sheet feeder, a plow folder and sheet cutter for continuous feed inkjet into book production and robots to move paper from machine to machine including from an RMGT press.
The Nipper robots were much in evidence with the press supplier, moving paper stacks to and from the RMGT 970 press, moving plates to the press for a robot loader to lift plates into the press and remove the used plates. This is something that Heidelberg and Koenig & Bauer have developed for online print customers and RMGT is addressing the same user base.
It is part way through delivery a massive order of the 920 and 970 series machines to a Chinese web to print customer.
Robots proliferated, to remove the manpower needed to run stacks of white paper or work in progress around the factory. While many product announcements made in Japan will never reach Europe or the US, the robots may just be coming.
