Ricoh’s new production colour system heralds a new era for production printing in New Zealand. The advent of the Ricoh Pro C900 gives print service providers an affordable, high quality option for production printing
The movers and shakers in the world of digital print production know that business turns too quickly for them to wait for events to unfold. They must make things happen when the opportunity arises. So when Ricoh wanted to enter the market for digital production printing, it knew it needed a press that offered speed and efficiency, and no small measure of flexibility.Entering the New Zealand market, the company knew its new machine would come under a microscope operated by some knowledgeable print service providers. Murray Clark, marketing manager Ricoh New Zealand, knew that New Zealanders possess a sound understanding of digital printing. He says, “New Zealand is a very tech savvy market. It always has been. Printers keep up with new technology and they know what matters.
“Digital printing is leading the way in the worldwide colour production market because of its efficiency and short turnaround time. More and
more production printers opt for digital over offset printing for commercial documents. In choosing an engine they often have to decide between a low-priced light production machine of which the performance does not live up to their requirements, and a heavy production machine with a high total cost of ownership, which significantly affects their profits. With the Pro C900, we offer a machine that combines professional quality and heavy duty performance at a cost-effective price. It is also easy to use, and we trust it will make our clients’ jobs much easier.”
Office to the print shop
In terms of digital colour production printers, Ricoh may look like the new kid in town, but a close scrutiny of its recent movements in industry reveals a player that is anything but wet behind the ears.
Ricoh currently manufactures one of the world’s most extensive line-ups of printers, copiers, scanners, faxes and multifunctional devices, as well as advanced software solutions.
As a global manufacturer of office systems and solutions, Ricoh decided some time ago to move into digital print production. Part of its strategy
involved acquiring companies that could help achieve its aims. Although as far back as 1995, when it acquired Savin USA and Gestetner, production print seemed a long way off, things began to heat up in 2004 when Ricoh acquired Hitachi’s printer division. This acquisition, regarded as Ricoh’s first big step toward production printing was followed by the 2007 acquisition of Danka in Europe then, more
significantly the acquisition of 51 per cent of IBM’s printing division to form a joint venture company called InfoPrint Solutions Company.
While acquisitions prove a quick and effective way to gain knowledge and skills, smart companies know they need something extra to gain the edge they seek. Aiming at print for pay, reprographic and graphic arts environments, as well as at commercial users such as service bureaus and direct mailers, the experts at Ricoh weren’t content with a total in house approach. They knew the value of looking hard at the competition before leaping into the fray.
Clark also commented, “To fully grasp all the technologies needed to enter the production print market Ricoh established a dedicated team who surveyed users of competitor’s products to determine one by one the specifications of our machine, and along the way they became aware of Ricoh’s strengths and weaknesses. The net result is they were able to endow the Pro C900 with features such as robust dependability regardless of paper thickness and precision in image registration and alignment.
“Ricoh also worked hard on reducing costs. They leveraged the assets that Ricoh has accumulated as a provider of solutions for offices, and were strict about initiating work on new components. The high performance and cost effective price of the Pro C900 are thanks to a modular construction supported by the entire Ricoh group.”
Volume, speed and quality
RICOH offers its Pro C900 digital production printer as a high volume full colour powerhouse, and it certainly boasts some powerful features. With a 90 pages per minute print speed capability, which according to Ricoh makes the C900 the fastest engine in its class, it accepts a variety of paper sizes up to SRA3 to a maximum weight of 300 gsm. Mark Burgess, national high volume specialist for Ricoh New Zealand, believes the machine’s ability to retain that speed makes it an essential press for any print shop. He says, “The Pro C900 consistently prints at 90 pages per minute. It doesn’t slow down, even when it’s printing heavy stock.”
Burgess continues that other features of the Pro C900 will help print service providers achieve excellent productivity as well. Citing the machine’s 11,000- sheet input capacity to guarantee long runs, he adds that the paper and toner can easily be refilled on the fly to make the most of the available uptime.
Registration delivery
Burgess finds print service providers become enthusiastic when they witness the registration that the Pro C900 delivers. He says, “Registration is an area where digital print production has often come in for criticism. But now, it has been successfully addressed by the technical experts at Ricoh so printers can look forward to images that are sharp and precisely aligned. The Pro C900’s integrated technology includes a paper registration and skew control unit providing (+/-) 0 .5mm back-to-front image registration.”
Paper feeding, another issue that has long plagued digital print production, also came in for serious consideration when Ricoh got involved in making a production press. Burgess says the LCIT RT5020 large capacity trays incorporate air-assist paper feeding, which involves blowing air into the paper tray to make the sheets fan out.”
The EFI Fiery controller, developed especially for the Pro C900, comes built-in. The powerful processor rips fast with image resolution of 1200 dpi.
With ColorWise Pro Tools like calibration, custom profile creation and spot colour matching, printer colours can be managed with great precision.
The standard Graphic Arts package consists of a number of professional features, among which soft and hard proofing and paper simulations. For flexible variable data printing, there is the standard EFI FreeForm utility.
Colour density change remains below 0.1. Burgess says that printers can already see the advantages of this technology combined with the other advances incorporated in the Pro C900. He says, “One of the more significant applications on digital presses today is business cards. Many business card designs are using complicated graphics and are printed two sides. This makes printer registration critical especially on heavy weigh substrates. The Ricoh ProC900 registration accuracy will assist printers to achieve excellent results. Combine this with the layup capabilities of fiery impose, the EFI utility that comes with the ProC900 Fiery, and printers will be able to profitably address the business card printing opportunity.
“The Pro C900 also incorporates developer pre-mixed toner along with a single direction development process to ensure consistent colour reproduction from print-to-print and across long print runs.”
Finishing options
The Pro C900 can be fitted out with several in-line finishing options that fully automate the production workflow: a 3,000-sheet finisher with 100-sheet stapler, punch unit, Plockmatic booklet maker, saddle stitch unit, GBC Stream Punch III and Z-folder are available.
Burgess says that the finishing options provided by the Pro C900 will add versatility to print service provider’s capabilities. He says, “The fully automated ring binder cuts down the traditional workload of finishing documents. For complete, professional booklets, customers can opt for the ring binder or perfect binder units. The ring binder automatically punches and binds documents of up to 50 or 100 pages with black or white rings. With the perfect binder, users create books of up to 200 sheets with strong, glued backs. The books are trimmed at three edges. For a maximal output capacity of up to 13,000 sheets, the Pro C900 can be connected with tandem stackers.”
Burgess expresses no surprise at the positive reactions to the Pro C900. He says, “When you get this many technological innovations and combine them affordable pricing and back-up from the world’s largest office products company, then you’ve got the beginning of a revolution in the way people look at digital print production.”
Training and support
Ricoh knows that if you produce a machine like the Pro C900, you need to not only tell the world about, you also need to invest in training and support. Ricoh will make a total investment of US$20m over the next three years to enter and establish its presence in the production printing market by creating a new sales organisation and the development of two printing innovation centres. Located in Singapore and Sydney, the first of their kind in Asia Pacific, the printing innovation centres to be will demonstrate Ricoh’s latest production printing technologies, including integrated hardware and software solutions.
Nobuaki Majima, managing director, Ricoh Asia Pacific, says, “Setting up of the printing innovation centres is a statement of intent from Ricoh to secure the leadership position in the high volume printing segment. We will continue to invest and strengthen our presence and ability to support our customers in the region through key initiatives such as this in Singapore, Sydney and the rest of the Asia Pacific region.”
Opening soon, the printing innovation centres will support customers and subsidiary office, acting as a demo arena, providing simulation and replication of real world industry applications, and providing a platform for customers to learn and benchmark best practices and new technology. The Australian printing innovation centre, a 7900 sq ft facility with state-of-the-art infrastructure will support the growing market and customer base in the Pacific region.
In the production printing industry, it is estimated that for every dollar spent on printing, an additional six dollars is spent on managing the print workflow. As companies recognise significant costs associated with printing, there is an increasing demand for printing solutions to be more supportive of organisations’ needs through greater cost-effectiveness, higher productivity and solutions which can meet corporate objectives.
While many companies, feeling the economy creaking and groaning, have decided to downsize, Ricoh, as part its investment strategy, will increase its headcount to support its expansion into the production printing market. Majima adds, “We have created a new sales division for the production printing market and we target to expand this base to 100 by 2010, which includes sales, support and technical talent. Through this significant investment we will help customers realise the creation in value that would result from workflow re-engineering and our increased customer support and care.”
The revolution begins at home
The printing innovation centre, set for its official opening in Sydney in April, forms part of Ricoh’s assault on the production print marketplace. Other initiatives include placing the Pro C900 at trade shows. While PacPrint, Australasia’s largest print exhibition, has come at an ideal time for Ricoh to display its new flagship, Ricoh New Zealand isn’t waiting for Kiwi printers to cross the Tasman. Clark says, “The timing of PacPrint is great for Ricoh in Australia and New Zealand. But we know not everyone will make it there and we’re also moving things along at home. We’ve already placed presses with clients who attended drupa and have several more orders due to go in.
