Inkjet & Digital Printing
Interak sees productivity boost three months on from Jet Press 540W installation
Wednesday 04. May 2016 - Looking to simplify its production processes and improve the profitability of its short-run work, leading Polish commercial printer Interak turned to Fujifilm and the Jet Press 540W
Based in Czarnków, Poland, Interak is a full service, print solutions provider with a proud 27-year history. Producing a huge range of books, magazines, catalogues and instruction manuals, Interak has an annual turnover of more than 25 million and serves a variety of customers from major corporations to individuals, across 11 European countries.
Already one of Polands largest and most technologically advanced print houses, Interak is continually on the lookout for ways in which to develop and grow its business. To that end it has been steadily expanding its portfolio of digital platforms in order to provide a wider range of products with much shorter lead times. It has also introduced a web-to-print service and offers print on demand books – even down to orders of a single copy. The Fujifilm Jet Press 540W, installed in December 2015, has proved the perfect investment to help to grow this side of the business.
The investment came after more than a year spent testing a variety of machines from a range of suppliers. “We werent just looking for a new press,” explains Szymon Symonowicz, Interaks Technical Director. “We wanted an ongoing partnership with a supplier to help drive our business forward. It was the confidence we felt in Fujifilms ability to meet those requirements as much as the capabilities of the machine itself that led us to make the decision we did. On both counts weve been very impressed – Fujifilms ongoing service since installation has been exemplary and the machine has more than lived up to the promise it showed during our trials.”
Unlike a conventional web offset press, where printing sizes are limited by the size of the plate cylinder, the Fujifilm Jet Press 540W uses direct data printing, so there is much more flexibility in the cut-off size of the paper. It can accommodate a wider variety of jobs, while remaining highly efficient for standard jobs that utilise the same paper size.
Driven by XMF workflow, one of the most comprehensive and advanced production management systems on the market, the Jet Press 540W can be easily integrated with a range of post-press solutions. It also opens up a range of new business opportunities by enabling the combination of short-run and variable data capabilities, making it ideal for the production of leaflets, magazines, educational textbooks, manuals and newspapers.
Symonowicz agrees: “Its an excellent machine for printing both roll to roll and roll to sheet. Its productivity, at 127 metres per minute, is superb, and we have found it remarkably easy to operate. It is also ideally suited to low-volume book printing – an area of the business we expect to grow even more rapidly in the coming years, and it has freed up a lot of space on our litho platforms, significantly increasing our capacity across the business as a whole.”
Fujifilm has used all its knowledge and experience to develop inks for use with this press which, when combined with its ultra-compact footprint, maximise the application flexibility and versatility of the machine. The VIVIDIA WP-S pigment ink range features a wider colour gamut, suffers from less ‘see through’ on the page and can be used in nearly all graphic applications, using either normal offset or inkjet optimised paper types.
This ink range, developed specifically to deliver superb image quality, allows high-density images to be printed at high speed, with reduced ink transfer from sheet to sheet, and with high-quality reproduction possible even on thin paper. The Jet Press 540W also utilises Fujifilms own screening technology, based on FM screening, which delivers smooth colours and sharp text.
“Weve found the quality of the Jet Press 540W to be exceptional,” says Symonowicz, “I think a lot of people have yet to realise just how far inkjet technology has come in the past few years. There is still a tendency among some to presume they will always get better quality with offset – but when it comes to a machine like the Jet Press, that isnt necessarily the case anymore. The feedback we have received for the jobs printed on this machine since installation has been very positive indeed. Inkjet is the future, were certain of that, and our customers are increasingly coming to that view as well.”
Says Wieland Schwarz, Marketing and Sales Manager at Fujifilm: “Were delighted that Interak selected Fujifilm as a partner for this investment. Weve worked very closely with them to understand their requirements and their future plans. Our goals here are very much the same, as Interak grows, we know that we can help and support their growth too.”