Hunkeler Innovation Days: the future of printing is digital, automation and inline finishing

The Hunkeler Innovation Days in the last week of February was ruthless in showing the future of printing. Digital printing technology, complete workflow automation from proposal to despatch and inline finishing. Regardless of whether it´s direct mail, inserts, brochures, newspapers, magazines or any other printing, the well visited innovation days showed that this is the way it will be going. A number of new and surprising products where introduced during the conference, such as the new Xeikon 9800 Digital Color Press which replaces the well-known 8800, which can print up to 21,5 meter per minute and thanks to less expensive consumables has a lower cost per print. HP proudly showed its previously announced High Definition Nozzle Architecture technology which doubles the print resolution of their Web Presses. Other news came from Hunkeler themselves. They introduced a few fully automated finishing lines for segments such as direct mail, books and security printing. Muller Martini also had a first, a new perfect binder for print and offset especially for small and medium sized enterprises.

Hunkeler Book on Demand Solution

It were mainly days of practical applications such as the new Screen Truepress Jet 520HD which with its 1,200 dpi is perfect for books and commercial printing and the Xerox Impika eVolution for mailings and books, the Xeikon solution for inserts on india paper, the Canon Colorstream 3000 for stapled brochures and the Ricoh Pro VC60000 for double sided quality roll to roll printing .

Screen Combination line for brochure production

Another thing that was made clear is that digital printing is a global activity, because the solutions shown during the Innovation Days require a constant stream of orders to ensure profitability of these high investments, such an amount of orders can only come from globally operating clients.

 Xerox Books and mailings on the Impika eVolution