Inkjet & Digital Printing

Kirkwood Direct reaches new heights with Ricohs cutting-edge inks and inkjet platform

Friday 03. May 2019 - Fast-growing printer adds RICOH Pro VC60000 with Expanded Gamut Inks to empower its direct mail division with expanded capabilities, enabling single-pass VDP, even on coated media

Ricoh USA Inc. today announced Kirkwood Direct, an industry leading end-to-end direct marketing company and a subsidiary of award-winning integrated communications provider Kirkwood US, has partnered with Ricoh to streamline and enhance its variable data printing (VDP) technology. By implementing a RICOH Pro VC60000 with brand-new Expanded Gamut Inks, Kirkwood Direct will significantly reduce time and costs associated with VDP. This partnership makes Kirkwood Direct the first VDP printer in the New England region to implement Ricoh’s Expanded Gamut Inks, allowing the company to deliver near-offset image quality at high speeds, even on coated media.
Kirkwood US began in 1973 with a single press printing technical manuals for Boston-area technology companies. Over the next four decades, the company grew to become a global full-service print communications provider, with in-house services ranging from award winning offset printing, variable data direct mail, database management, mailing services, digital print, wide-format, grand-format printing as well as fulfillment and postal logistic planning. Kirkwood continues to build on this impressive growth, represented by a nearly 900% increase in annual revenue over the past 15 years (today totaling $75M) and a sprawling 80,000-square-foot headquarters in Wilmington, Massachusetts
For the past several years, Kirkwood Direct’s VDP operation relied on the deployment of multiple digital sheet-fed presses for production This approach met the interim needs for VDP, however it was not the company’s long-term strategic solution. In recent months, Kirkwood Direct’s senior management team made the decision to upgrade technology and invest in new equipment, but they needed a press that could keep up with its customers’ high-volume, fast-turn demands and print to different papers, such as glossy, uncoated stock or cover stock.
“The quality and versatility of our Kirkwood brands had really taken off in recent years, and we knew it was time to take Kirkwood Direct’s capabilities to the next level. Ricoh’s technology perfectly fit our needs and exceeded our expectations, but what really persuaded us was how firmly Ricoh stands behind its products,” said Steven Kuczwara, Vice President of Operations, Kirkwood Direct. “They took us to the Customer Experience Center in Boulder, Colorado, and let us see firsthand what can be done with the technology, including how spectacular and precise the output is, and how quickly it can be produced. That, combined with Ricoh’s strong reputation for support, let us know that Ricoh was the real deal.”
The RICOH Pro VC60000 provides a function-rich, comprehensive solution for customers looking to expand their digital, inkjet or color capabilities. The Ricoh printheads and inks, which leverage dynamic variable drop technology, are capable of producing offset-replaceable print quality with physical resolutions of up to 1,200 x 1,200 dpi. It supports a wide range of fluid types, paper stocks and file formats, including PDF, PDFVT, JDF/JMF, PostScript and AFP/IPDS. With its modular architecture, the RICOH Pro VC60000 is highly configurable to meet users’ unique needs, and highly scalable to grow with rapidly evolving companies like Kirkwood to protect their investments as needs change.
Ricoh’s brand-new Expanded Gamut inkjet technology rivals the output of offset inks with its media versatility and compatibility with gloss-coated stocks. These inks are designed to make the entire production system more versatile and economical – and less complicated. In addition to a significant boost in color gamut, these inks enable print operators to print faster on a wider variety of media, including standard offset coated and uncoated papers, all with improved make-ready times.
“Business needs like Kirkwood Direct’s are exactly why we designed and developed the RICOH Pro VC60000 and the Expanded Gamut Inks,” said Mike Herold, Director, Global Marketing, Inkjet Solutions, Commercial & Industrial Printing Business Group, Ricoh. Various print methodologies have played such a huge role in direct mail for so long, but businesses realize they need higher quality and faster turns at lower costs to stay competitive. Kirkwood Direct’s confidence in Ricoh and our technologies is a real testament to our commitment to helping our customers meet today’s shifting market needs and being prepared for those to come.”