A Clustered Future?

Some copier vendors see a strong future for black-and-white copier/printers as part of a cluster printing system. T/R Systems pioneered this model, but others are now touting their own cluster solutions.

Minolta's MicroPress can support up to 12 output engines that can be a combination of black-and-white and color engines. The Unified Konica Solution also links to both black-and-white and color engines, with the server routing pages to the appropriate devices.

"This creates a tremendous boost in efficiency, because operators can run several jobs simultaneously, instead of completing one job before starting the next," says Kevin Kern, of Konica. "The result is much faster turnaround, improved overall quality, and a lot less waste." Users can also run one job on all printers simultaneously.

Clustering lets in-plants move gradually into color.

"An in-plant may start with three black-and-white engines and one color engine, then if the demand for color grows, they can simply add a second or third color engine," notes Steve Pearl, of Minolta.

One of the most important benefits of cluster printing is the system's ability to grow.

"Cluster printing's architecture is scalable and can grow as the users' needs grow," says Pearl.

While cluster printing is not yet mainstream, a significant number of in-plants are migrating in this direction, reports Dennis Amorosano, of Canon USA.

"As more users start tying together multiple lower-speed engines to drive production output capabilities, more manufacturers will start developing this capability," he predicts. "Servers will become more comprehensive in their abilities and will be a lot easier to use. Ultimately, servers driving low-speed clusters will start to mirror the capabilities of single units and function like high-volume, high-speed front-end servers."

To facilitate cluster printing on its machines, Océ developed two software packages. One automatically routes print jobs to the "best fit" and most cost-effective printer on the network. The second program lets users send jobs to the in-plant via electronic job tickets. The operator can then route the jobs to any number of printers.

"This allows people access to any printer on their network, black-and-white or color, with accounting reports to track individual device volume," explains David Schumaker, of Océ Document Printing Systems.

Additional Reading

Cluster Printing: A User's Story