Dozens of New Systems Unveiled at Pre-drupa Conference

By Bob Neubauer

This week in Düsseldorf, Germany, about 70 trade journalists from all over the world gathered for a preview of some of the innovations to be shown at drupa 2024, the world's largest graphic arts trade show. Eighteen graphic arts vendors took turns announcing new products and dropping hints about what they will reveal at the show, which will take place May 28-June 7.

Journalist from around the world gathered at the pre-drupa 2024 conference to get a sneak peek at the new products dropping later this year.

Throughout the presentations, company representatives repeated several themes impacting the printing industry, while explaining how their new releases have been designed to address these issues. Chief among them were sustainability, digitization, and the shortage of skilled operators. During the opening roundtable discussion, Dr. Andreas Pleßke, CEO at Koenig & Bauer AG and chairman of the drupa Committee, offered his perspective on sustainability.

“In our industry, sustainability is not a contradiction to cost,” said Plesska. When equipment is more sustainable, he explained, the cost of printing comes down due to the need for less ink and less paper.

To help bring younger workers into the industry, Sabine Geldermann, director of drupa, talked about efforts to attract students to drupa and engage with them via design contests highlighting their creativity.

Throughout the three-day pre-drupa event, representatives from Canon, Epson, Fujifilm, Heidelberg, HP, Koenig & Bauer, Konica Minolta, Landa Digital Printing, Ricoh, and others discussed their drupa plans, revealed their drupa themes, and unveiled some of the technologies they will be showing.

Benny Landa offered a presentation on nanography to the audience.

One of the highlights of the event was the appearance of industry icon Benny Landa, founder of Indigo and early proponent of digital printing. Now head of Landa Digital Printing, Landa took to the stage to explain nanography to journalists with the same passion, tempered only slight by age, as he displayed in the 1990s when promoting Indigo digital presses. He went on to introduce two new Landa presses, the S11 and S11P, which boast embedded AI, seven-color printing, and speeds of 11,200 prints per hour. They will be on display at drupa.

Other interesting product announcements that will be displayed at drupa:

Canon will show the Canon varioPRINT iX1700, a new 170 A4 images per minute, sheetfed inkjet press as well as the new ProStream 2000, a new series of web-fed inkjet press, which prints at up to 133m/min on standard offset coated, uncoated and inkjet optimized media, and is 20% shorter than the ProStream 3000. It will also show two new ColorStream 8000 models, the ColorStream 8200 and 8110. The ColorStream 8200 has a maximum speed of up to 200 metres per minute, and the 8110 prints at 110 metres per minute.
Ricoh’s exhibit will have the theme HENKAKU, the Japanese term for transformational innovation. It will highlight the Ricoh Pro Z75 auto-duplexing B2 sheetfed digital aqueous inkjet press, and the Ricoh Pro VC80000 continuous-feed inkjet press in its booth.
HP will show the HP Indigo 120K Digital Press, with 30% higher productivity and AI-based automation. Also at drupa will be the HP Indigo 18K Digital B2 Press, which supports Enhanced Productivity Mode (EPM), delivering 24% energy savings per sheet.
Fujifilm Group will showcase its Revoria Press GC12500 with B2XL maximum paper size (750 × 662mm), allowing up to six-up A4 posters. The company will also show the JetPress 1160CFG continuous-feed inkjet press with new paper stabilizer technology, newly developed water-based pigment ink, and the ability to print on both coated and uncoated paper. It will also show its new Aquafuze ink technology, which combines water-based and UV curable ink for wide format inkjet printing applications.
Konica Minolta will show its its next generation HS-UV Inkjet Press, AccurioJet 60000, which employs inline sensors and a spectrophotometer to automatically monitor printing conditions. It will also show the Konica Minolta AccurioPress C84hc, which uses high chroma toner that prints bright vivid colors consistently.
Epson discussed several new technologies coming to drupa: its new robust printhead, the D3000, designed for aqueous and UV ink applications; its new industrial SurePress labelling concept; the new direct-to-fabric printer Monna Lisa 13000, which integrates pre- and post-processes; the new SureColor F10000 dye-sublimation printer with jumbo roll; and the hybrid DTG/DTFilm SureColor F1000 and the A4 UV flatbed SureColor V1000.
With the theme “Unfold your Potential,” Heidelberg’s exhibit will focus on helping printers cope with challenges like cost pressures, a shortage of skilled workers, and growing sustainability requirements. Advances to its new-generation Speedmaster XL 106 will be highlighted.
Durst will display the P5SMP super multi pass high volume hybrid production LED printer, printing at 2,000 sq. m. per hour.
Visitors can expect to see web offset presses at drupa, including the manroland Goss Varioman press, which it calls “The Game Changer.”

There was much more drupa news than this, of course. Watch for it here in the days ahead.

pre-drupa 2024 Conference

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.