Greens will be supplied with four of the latest Ricoh Pro C9500s; two Ricoh C9500s have already been installed, with two more to follow this year. Additional Pro 8300 mono series devices will also be added to the portfolio later in 2024.

With over 100 years in the communications, documentation and logistics industry, Greens produce clinical research materials for drug trials, with its document construction and global distribution. The company’s other main areas of operation include data and transactional print, mailing and distribution.

Daniel Buckland, group finance director at Greens, commented, ‘This most recent investment in Ricoh technology has enabled us to further improve our existing offerings to our customers and to build further workflow automation into our production environment, which is helping to support the continuing growth of our web to print platform Doxzoo. All of this results in enhanced operational efficiencies for our business and higher-quality output for our customers.’

Tim Carter, commercial print director at Ricoh Graphic Communications, added, ‘We are delighted to extend our partnership with Greens for the next five years. The instalment of the latest Ricoh Pro C9500 will drive a wide range of positive impacts for the customer, generating business success and long-term growth.’

The post Greens and Ricoh extend technology partnership appeared first on Digital Printer.

The open house event at the company’s Customer Experience Centre in Telford, Shropshire, was attended by some 65 UK customers and included presentations of the recently launched Pro C7500 and Pro C9500 toner presses, Ricoh’s software and workflow portfolio and a demonstration of the new Auto Color Adjuster.

The latter is designed to de-skill colour management by providing a simple one-touch approach to measuring calibration charts for ICC profile building, or printed samples in order to provide accurate matching of existing work, across multiple print devices and over time. The floor-standing unit has a built-in spectrophotometer and auto-feed that can read a patch chart in around 20 seconds.

It offer three modes: Quick Adjust which checks press calibration and compensates for colour deviation; Verify, which enables test charts containing Fogra Media Wedges to be generated and measured, with pass/fail certification; and Spot Colour which allows for matching of existing samples by scanning the sample to be matched, plus a ‘raw’ print from the press in question and automatically generating a device-link CMYK-to-CMYK correction profile to make subsequent new prints match the sample.

Ricoh’s commercial print sales director Tim Carter spoke to Digital Printer and revealed that the announcement of a UK customer site for the company’s long heralded Pro Z75 inkjet press is due ‘within the next few weeks’;  installation at a French site is presently underway, with one to follow in the Netherlands, and a fourth is expected by the end of the current financial year. Mr Carter said that the fourth machine could possibly also be placed in the UK.

‘We are scaling manufacturing in Japan and getting the spares, support and infrastructure in place to ramp up installations significantly,’ he confirmed. Describing the target customer for the B2 press, he explained, ‘It has been designed to have the broadest appeal possible, for general commercial printers moving standard offset pages to digital.’ Target businesses include online printers and gifting/greetings cards producers; Mr Carter also noted that the press’s ability to handle stock up to 600microns thick would suit some packaging applications – helped by its water-based inks – and said that it has been designed to ‘open up and expand opportunities both for Ricoh and its customers’.

There is an optional primer for the Pro Z75, he added, ‘but the aim aim is to not to have to use it, as the press prints on silk, matt and coated papers without it’, and the primer was intended for use with speciality media or some types of uncoated stock. He also explained that the dryer, critical to presenting flat dry sheets in duplexing work, uses a patent-applied-for directed heat technique that focuses on the imaged area.

Reference was also made during a general presentation to a forthcoming ‘new [inkjet] platform’ that would use AI and automation to ‘match offset productivity’. Few further details were given but Mr Carter likened the next step to the difference between Ricoh’s VC60000 and VC70000 models (both of which have evolved since their introduction) and implied that speed, quality and substrate flexibility were all in line to be further improved. More information about this is expected in a month or so. Both this and the Pro Z75 will be on display at drupa 2024.

The post Ricoh adds colour tool, counts B2 installations and teases inkjet development appeared first on Digital Printer.

Tim Carter, a director at Ricoh, Matthew Ruff, sales and marketing director at Reliance Worldwide, and John Morley, a director at eProductivity Software (EPS) have all been all voted onto the council, bringing the total number of members to 17.

IPIA chairman Graeme Smith welcomed the trio by saying, ‘2022 marks an incredible year of growth for the IPIA and we’re excited by the energy, insight and diverse knowledge that Tim, Matthew and John bring. We’ve set ourselves some ambitious objectives and their input will be especially invaluable moving forward apace in areas like prioritising ESG, promoting the value of print as part of a channel mix and encouraging a younger and more diverse workforce into the sector.’

Mr Morley has worked in the print industry for many years and he sees part of his role within the IPIA as helping members be more successful at promoting print. He explained, ‘Using data to personalise the message is a real priority for print. Digital assets are valuable but the stats prove that the virtual and physical coming together adds greater value and response, so we need to keep pushing that message further upstream with brands, and I can help do that.’

Mr Ruff is not from a print background, but he has years of experience working with the British Standards Institution (BSI). He has pledged to help grow membership, and bring more diversity from sectors such as process management. He’s also keen to support quality management, explaining, ‘I’m not going audit heavy, just looking at ways to implement and improve, especially in areas like leaving more positive carbon footprints.’

Mr Carter brings with him decades of OEM technological know-how and a strong international network of people and companies. He commented, ‘I’m also pretty passionate about the legacy that we, the print industry, leave. I feel we all have a responsibility to promote our sector as dynamic, enjoyable and fruitful in order to attract and entice younger talent to want to invest their lives in it and make it successful too.’

The post IPIA welcomes trio to council appeared first on Digital Printer.

The second webinar will be hosted by Tim Carter, Ricoh’s commercial print director, commercial and industrial print (CIP) and will examine the current market opportunities presented by wide-format printing and give advice to businesses on creating a competitive service.

Other contributors will include Yucel Salih, wide format print specialist, CIP and Jason Naylor, senior software specialist, CIP both of Ricoh. They will cover the evolution of wide-format technology; why it can be a lucrative addition to an existing print organisation; how to make a quick ROI in the wide-format space; automation and finally why it is relatively easy to tap into this market without a high-risk investment or additional resources.

‘The beauty of large format print is that it’s a relatively low risk technology that can yield a high return on investment,’ said Mr Salih. ‘To accelerate your approach, we have created a best practice guide to running a large format operation. During the webinar we will show you how to provide a wider array of services – to new and existing customers – while reducing costs and increasing margins.

‘The aim of the event is to provide invaluable insight to ensure business continuity and resilience, even in the most challenging times.’

The post Ricoh taking a broad view with second webinar appeared first on Digital Printer.

Hosted by Ricoh director Tim Carter, the webinar saw both participants address the impact the Coronavirus outbreak has had on the print industry and how their own organisations had conducted extensive research and lobbied government on print’s behalf.

The truly new content, however, was about how print will evolve in the wake of the pandemic and the discussion ranged from reliance on government support schemes to why print needs to communicate better with its customers, the need for increased innovation and even opportunities that have come about as a result of this crisis.

For Mr Jarrold some of the key issues included the re-opening of the economy and why the various government schemes need to stay in place for the time being, as well as why we need to accept the world as it is going to be, not as it was or as we want it to be.

‘When it came to reopening the economy,’ Mr Jarrold said, ‘One advantage our sector has is that it hasn’t closed entirely so we’re scaling back up, not strictly reopening. However some demand simply has gone and will take time to come back, even when all businesses are open again we might be in a different world.’

In turn Ms Stefani proposed that companies use this ‘paused’ time to reassess their operations and to learn new things. She said that the low margin, high risk work so popular in the industry might no longer be appropriate and recommended people research blockchain and smart contracts.

She also emphasised how the industry has for so long produced top quality work, but not always managed to promote this to customers. PPE was one example where Ms Stefani noted that print companies are able to produce vast quantities of equipment, but that not enough people would think to turn to a printer for PPE. ‘We are so much more than ink on paper,’ she said.

Both parties agreed that communication would be key and that staff, stakeholders and customers would all have legitimate concerns going forward and that print companies need to listen to and address these concerns. 

Other topics covered included the workplace guidance recently released by Westminster, the balance that needs to be struck between health and safety and getting the economy going again, and the importance of trust in print in accelerating our return to ‘normal’.

The webinar can be viewed in its entirety here: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=Pxd9q3tfydg&feature=youtu.be

The post Ricoh webinar addresses print’s future appeared first on Digital Printer.