Prepress
EFI Launches High-performance Fiery Digital Front Ends for New Konica Minolta bizhub Family of Presses
Wednesday 05. February 2014 - EFI and Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Inc., announced the availability of two new digital front ends (DFEs) - the EFI Fiery IC-308 and IC-415 - designed to drive the Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C1060, C1070 and C1070P family of digital presses. Running on the latest, award-winning Fiery FS100 Pro platform, the EFI Fiery DFEs provide unparalleled performance, colour management and workflow automation tools.
“The new additions to the Fiery line-up for the Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS family deliver almost 2.5 times performance improvement over their predecessors,” said John Henze, vice president, Fiery marketing, EFI. “This means that print service providers can increase their capacity by shortening turnaround times for even the most challenging and complex files, including increasingly popular variable data jobs.”
“The ongoing relationship between EFI and Konica Minolta is represented in these market-leading solutions,” said Kevin Kern, senior vice president, Marketing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., “We are truly excited about delivering new and continued value to our customers with the right solutions to ensure a seamless, integrated experience.”
Reliable processing at blazing speeds
The two Fiery DFE models are targeted at production print operations, ranging from CRDs to commercial printing firms, and bring powerful functionality for high-margin print jobs such as photobooks or personalised communications. Users can also couple the Fiery IC-308 with Fiery Central, EFI’s centralised job production solution, to drive both the new colour Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS models and black-and-white bizhub PRESS 1052/1250/1250P digital printers. This unique configuration provides a centralised workflow with the common Fiery Command WorkStation job management interface to automatically balance printer fleet workloads for more efficient and lower cost production.
The Fiery FS100 Pro platform used for the new DFEs is the only production platform to achieve a 100% perfect pass rating from industry organisation VIGC’s PDF RIP Audit. This means that users can accurately and consistently reproduce even intricately designed files developed with tools like Adobe Creative Suite, avoiding costly reprints, delivery delays and dissatisfied print buyers.
Better business management with EFI MIS integration
Establishing an integrated workflow that saves time and minimises touch points in business and production processes is critical to success in today’s print market. Print organisations using EFI MIS and web-to-print solutions can seamlessly integrate with the IC-308 to increase operational efficiency. In addition, users can integrate the new DFEs with Kodak PRINERGY and other third-party prepress and workflow solutions to achieve higher-level efficiencies that streamline business operations.
Customers can also take advantage of Fiery JobMaster, an optional make-ready product that includes productivity enhancers such as visual tab insertion and design, easy-to-use page editing, chapterisation, and many other late-stage job editing features. This allows operators to set up and execute complex print jobs faster and more efficiently, saving time and increasing overall profitability.
“We’re excited to team with Konica Minolta to bring the advanced capabilities of the Fiery DFEs and bizhub PRESS family of digital colour presses to market,” EFI’s Henze noted. “We look forward to ongoing collaboration to meet the demands of production print customers well into the future.”
The new Fiery DFEs are available now from Konica Minolta and authorised Konica Minolta resellers.