Waiting for the revolution to begin

The story of sheetfed inkjet has so far been one of hype, delays and suspicion. The stand out example of this is of course Landa Digital Printing which for all the marketing spiel is an inkjet technology. Other companies introduced and demonstrated sheetfed inkjet presses at Drupa last year with the promise that by now these would be available, would be in action and would be transforming the lives of printers around the world. For the most part these targets have been missed and the revolution has been put on hold – at least for the time being. 

As a consequence there is little understanding of where these machines fit in the printing industry’s technology matrix. Are these simply larger digital presses? Are they replacements for an ageing B2 litho press which must now go the same way as the B3 sheetfed litho press? Or something new entirely? But now 18 months after Drupa there are indications that the game is finally changing. Canon at last has its machines available for testing, likewise Ricoh, Konica Minolta and Komori. Fujifilm of course has been selling B2 inkjet presses for the past decade, ploughing a rather lonely furrow.

Reports suggest that there is widespread interest in these new machines, even if this doesn’t correspond to immediate sales. This can be explained by ongoing uncertainty about the direction the industry is taking and what might be the best investment to cope with trends in sustainability, declining print runs and shortages of skilled staff. Counter to this there are always customers that are unwilling to pay any extra for their print. Personalisation may yet change this. It adds up to strong arguments to make a close examination of the digital technology over the traditional. There are still many many questions outstanding that will require an act of trust for those early adopters. The real revolution begins when there are also answers.