Next-Gen Tech: Redefining What’s Possible
By Erwin Busselot, Director Business Innovation & Solutions, Ricoh Graphic Communications, Ricoh Europe
Complex discussions regarding how digital printing can help printers enhance their offerings have taken the place of straightforward talks about the financial breakeven point between traditional and digital printing. This was an important conclusion in the Drupa Horizon Report.
Rolf Müller, the CEO of Printimo, which is part of the Optimo Service industrial services group, is well aware of this reality. This Swiss Print Service Provider (PSP) specializes in a variety of personalized products such as business cards, brochures, and books, and has invested in the latest RICOH Pro C9500 and RICOH Pro C7500 technology to handle a growing range of jobs. He notes, “Currently, we complete 60 percent of our jobs using digital printers, and this percentage continues to rise. In some cases, we produce just four pages of highly personalized content, while for other projects, we can create up to 100,000 flyers. Although offset printing is still a crucial part of our business for longer print runs, the adaptability and speed of digital printing are becoming increasingly essential. As the trend shifts from high-volume black-and-white printing to more customized outputs, we aimed to provide new alternatives with bolder colors to help our clients distinguish themselves in their markets.”
With its Pro C9500 and Pro C7500, Printimo is able to adapt to client needs, providing exceptional levels of personalization and innovation – swiftly, dependably, and effectively. Rolf Müller explains: “Our capacity for color printing has significantly increased. A 40-page brochure used to take 12 hours or 1.5 working days to print on our previous machines. Now, with the Pro C9500, we achieve the same output 30 percent faster and can dispatch it to the customer within a day. This represents a substantial time saving for our entire team – and enhances our customer service!”
“Stable and good print quality are at the top of our wish list,” states Rik Thijssen, Operations Manager, of Dutch scientific and educational book publisher Printforce. The specialist in on demand “single copy” books has installed two Pro C9500 devices to help it produce 15 to 20 thousand books every day, in three shifts, with an average print run of six copies.
The new systems are identical and interchangeable, ensuring sufficient capacity is always available. In addition to paper trays for three different paper types, they feature an XL tray for nonstandard paper sizes such as those required for dust jackets or covers with flaps. Process Engineer Rogier Calsijn explains: “The quality requirements for book covers are high. Especially when producing a single copy: any deviation on the cover can be grounds for the customer to complain or return. The quality of the covers is hardly an issue anymore, because the promised colour stability is actually delivered in practice.”
Europe’s first Pro C9500 at the Cantonal Printed Matter and Supplies Office (kdmz) of the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland, was chosen to support the production of a wide range of print output for the Canton of Zurich administration and other regional government departments and organisations. Rolf Thoma, Head of Procurement and Printing at kdmz, says: “In the first six months of a year especially, we print many time critical documents. These are highly sensitive print jobs, which we can’t give to external printers. Our old colour print solution could not deliver the speed and output quality we needed. We had to increase our inhouse capacity to facilitate seamless operations and ensure citizens received relevant documents on time.”
Markus Kirchhofer, Managing Director, adds: “Now we can produce complex graphics with more contrast, detail, and clarity. We can also streamline print jobs. For example, in the past, we sometimes printed the cover for a high-profile publication separately to the main content of a booklet or brochure. Now we can print everything on our Pro C9500 to simplify and accelerate the process. Thanks to the high reliability and efficiency of the Ricoh printers, we can increase our production volumes and deliver even the most complex print jobs faster. This improves our operational flexibility and enhances our service capabilities. With our new Ricoh production printers, we’re taking a big step forward in print quality.”
Poplar Services Printers was the inaugural company in Great Britain to install both a Pro C9500 and a Pro C7500, enabling them to enhance their capacity, introduce new print colors, and venture into short-run packaging. Managing Director Martin Winders states, “After previously operating the Ricoh Pro C9110, we believed it was a logical progression to upgrade to Ricoh’s latest technology. This advancement creates new opportunities, and having now completed comprehensive training and testing on all equipment, we are ready to showcase our new capabilities as the first company in the UK providing this complete service.” These and other print service providers have opted for the latest Ricoh Pro C9500 and Ricoh Pro C7500 technologies to boost their production abilities and broaden their service offerings. Discover how they can assist your business in exploring previously unreachable avenues for profitable growth.
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