XMPie

Xerox's latest digital color technology has been unveiled, including the Versant 80, which has been designed with in-plants in mind. The company has also released the new Color 800i and 1000i presses, along with new metallic gold and silver inks.

These products for the in-plant market will be on display at Graph Expo.

For Gordon Ryan, director of design, printing and fulfillment services for the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA), a career in printing is as much about communication as it is about ink on paper. For the past 31 years, the native Mainer has split his time almost equally between working face-to-face with customers and working the production floor. In fact, the diversity of his experience—partly a product of chance, partly of design—is what won him the job at NYSBA in the first place.

“A business card is very personal. It’s representative of the individual,” explains Michael Schaefer, Print Center director at Methodist Healthcare System. “So I tell the employees, ‘You may think it’s just a card, but that’s got their name on it.’”

In April, Xerox hosted an event in Washington, D.C., that drew more than 80 in-plants from around the region. Titled “Freedom to Perform: Innovative Ideas to Make Your In-plant Thrive,” the one-day event focused on sharing best practices.

In-plants that have not invested in VDP should consider the value-added service opportunities that it has to offer. Integrating variable data services within existing production operations allows in-plants to offer faster turnaround times and reduce the costs associated with outsourcing jobs that require personalization. Having a VDP solution will allow them to stay relevant and serve the printing needs of multiple departments within their organization.

At Graph Expo, digital press vendors highlighted their workflow and digital front end capabilities, enabling everything from transpromotional and variable data printing to ganging of smaller jobs into longer production runs. The emphasis was on automation, personalization and run-length optimization.

Each year, a panel of industry experts, journalists and consultants analyzes the graphic arts technologies that will be on display at the Graph Expo trade show and assembles a list of those they feel will have the greatest impact on the printing industry. This list of “Must See ’Ems” winners has traditionally been revealed at the pre-show Executive Outlook Conference, just a day before the Chicago show opens.

Fujifilm will show the J Press 720 inkjet press. Heidelberg will present Prinect Digital Workflow Integration. New features for the Kodak NexPress platform will be shown.

With the early announcement of this year’s top technology winners, GRAPH EXPO 2012 attendees will be able for the first time to plan their Must See ’Ems booth visits in advance of the show. They also will be able to take advantage of a new Must See ’Ems pre-show webinar for more in-depth discussions of the winning technologies and the reasons they were chosen.