Ok Inkjet fans, we now have a game in progress! Over the past year you have heard a LOT from me about inkjet through my work with HP. I’m happy to report that both Xerox and Canon Solutions America also want to share their stories and knowledge with you, and are participating along with HP on “I Can’t Believe it’s Not Offset! Everything You Need To Know About The Inkjet Revolution!” in the Printerverse at Graph Expo (booth 3867) on Tuesday Sept 15, 11-11:45AM CT. If you are in Chicago, don’t miss this! If you can’t make it, you can watch LIVE via Liverstream! All info is here.
Representing Xerox on the panel is Dustin Graupman. I sent him a few questions so we could learn a little more about him, and the Xerox inkjet offerings prior to the show. Based on his responses, I am even more sure that this panel is going to be amazing… Enjoy!
DC: Who is Dustin Graupman and what does he do?
DG: I am a soccer fanatic, and when I’m not at the office, you can usually find me playing in indoor and outdoor leagues a few times each week and spending time with my family: My beautiful wife, Liz, of 18 years, and my children Lauren (17), Will (15) and Ella (11).
At Xerox, my role is VP GM of our Continuous Feed Ink Jet Business. It is a worldwide role that is primarily responsible for managing the current portfolio of roll-fed ink jet presses that Xerox sells into the market, as well as planning for and managing the development of the next generation of products based on market and business requirements.
DC: Why has Xerox made inkjet part of their offerings? Who are your presses best suited for?
DG: Inkjet technology – specifically full color – has somewhat quickly emerged as a very viable print technology for a growing number of applications. Inkjet technology in general today is well suited for transactional documents (bank statements, bills, etc.), direct mail solicitation and short run color books and catalogues. But the technology is advancing quickly and serving a growing number of applications. Xerox has invested in ink jet technology because, as the leader in digital printing, our customer’s demand of us to propose the best solution for their needs and ink jet is becoming just that for many customers. Additionally, inkjet represents a great opportunity for Xerox as many projections indicate that the declining run lengths on other print technologies (like offset) will intersect with the productivity and image quality improvements of ink jet to make it a critical print process well into the future.
DC: Offset is to publishing as Inkjet is to ___________, and why?
DG: I honestly cannot answer that question directly. Publishing is an industry that was transformed by the introduction of the DocuTech technology in the early 1990’s. No longer were customers constrained by the long lead times of offset print and the minimum order quantities associated with achieving a reasonable unit cost. Color inkjet technology represents as similar, if not greater, opportunity for print providers to provide solutions to the publishing industry which can further revolutionize their business model in a fast changing world of how people consume content. For instance, publishers can now monetize content before a full book is even complete by selling chapters. They can also present content in a customer textbook, drawing chapters from multiple books and authors. Lastly they can keep titles available forever in a “virtual warehouse” where nothing is out of print because it is only printed on-demand. But it also changes publishing because no longer do publishers need to print and inventory large volumes of books with little knowledge of how much demand there will be until they are in market. So inkjet is much, much more to publishing than offset is or ever was – it is a technology which truly allows publishers to transform their business to the world we live in today – on-demand and personalized.
DC: What is waterless ink technology, and can only certain paper be used in conjunction with it?
Waterless ink technology is a proprietary Xerox inkjet technology which, as the name suggests, doesn’t introduce water as the carrier of the pigments through the heads and to the paper. The carrier is polymer-based – solid in nature – which is melted and then returned to solid state once printed on the page. The advantages of solid ink are largely that it works on a very broad range of commodity substrates – and achieves great color vibrancy every time. This happens because more of the ink stays on the surface and doesn’t soak into the page like water-based inks do. The advances with water-based ink have been significant and we also invest there but Xerox is the only company to market a waterless inkjet technology for the production print space.
DC: Since Xerox offers both, what would be the factors for recommending aqueous inkjet over waterless inkjet for a printing business?
DG: Some is customer preference but largely it is driven by the applications and the customer requirements. For instance we have one customer who runs such high volumes that they were able to justify the investment in waterless technology simply based on the cost savings they are able to achieve with the ability to buy commodity grade paper. But others like the flexibility of our aqueous solutions as they can print at 3 different resolutions to achieve a range of image quality. So it is mostly driven by what the customer is looking for in their business goals.
DC: If you were invited to give the commencement speech at RIT, your alma mater, what would be your message regarding the significance of inkjet printing to the industry now, and over the next 5 years?
DG: I probably alluded to it earlier. In my 25 years in the print industry only a few transformational technologies have come along. Top of mind I think of DocuTech, color cut sheet toner (iGen), computer-to-plate technology and desktop publishing. Of those technologies, only the print technologies provided the opportunity for the print provider to creatively add value to their customer’s business by showing them a different way to communicate, develop new products, etc. Inkjet technology has that same potential (and it is being realized today) because it is a full color solution with dramatically better levels of productivity, and in many instances, more favorable run costs than the other digital alternatives. It is also more feature rich than static offset print. In many ways, it is the best of both worlds between offset and toner based printing.
PMC is honord to have Xerox in our Printerverse Alliance!
Visit Xerox at Graph Expo 2015 in booth 613!
