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Konica Minolta to Showcase New Solutions and Products at drupa 2016, World’s Leading International Trade Fair for Print and Cross-Media Solutions, in Largest Ever Exhibition Space
- Strengthening Product Lineup in Commercial and Industrial Printing Sector -
Tokyo (May 10, 2016) - Konica Minolta, Inc. (Konica Minolta) today announced that it will showcase its products at drupa 2016, the world’s leading international trade fair for print and cross-media solutions to be held in Dusseldorf, Germany from May 31 (Tue.) to June 10 (Fri.), 2016, at its booth with an area of 2,400 m2, the largest ever exhibition space for the company.
Background
Konica Minolta was one of the first companies to recognize the importance of commercial printing, and has contributed to the development and expansion of the digital printing market as a leading company in the toner-based digital printing area. Konica Minolta is committed to further strengthening its products and services for the commercial printing market, while encouraging printing companies to introduce digital printing systems for various purposes, ranging from general commercial printing to label and packaging space, by offering both toner-based and inkjet printing systems.
Upholding the principle, “We enable your business and your customer’s business,” Konica Minolta will unveil new solutions in the areas of commercial printing and label and packaging printing for worldwide customers at drupa 2016, a major trade fair that attracts a great deal of attention from the printing industry around the world.
New brand, Accurio
Konica Minolta hopes to offer optimal solutions to printing companies to meet their needs, help them expand their business, and increase their profits. With this in mind, Konica Minolta will introduce a new brand, Accurio, at drupa 2016. This brand is Konica Minolta’s truthful and sincere declaration of its strong determination to become a reliable partner of all printing companies.
Outline of Konica Minolta’s exhibition at drupa 2016
1. Official launch of AccurioJet KM-1 B2 digital inkjet press (new product)
With its capability of printing high-quality images, comparable to those of sheet-fed*1 offset printers, on a wide variety of paper media, this product provides the commercial printing market with long-awaited solutions.
*1Sheet-fed printing press uses individual sheets of paper pre-cut in the same size, while roll-fed printing press uses rolls of paper.
2. Label and packaging printing zone
Konica Minolta offers optimized print quality and value-added printing possible only through digital printing.
- Full-color digital label press, the bizhub PRESS C71cf
Demonstrations will be given to show how the bizhub PRESS C71cf, in combination with MGI’s JETvarnish, can produce high-quality labels. - A technical showcase of the KM-C, a B1 inkjet digital press for paper packaging printing, will be staged.
3. AccurioPro, a series of solutions and services that ensure higher work efficiency and stable print quality
- Cloud color management system, AccurioPro Cloud Eye
- Workflow integration system, AccurioPro Conductor
Value offered by the new brand, Accurio
Backed by the rapid progress of web-based services and SNS, clients of printing companies are pressed to develop marketing strategies more precisely tailored to the needs of their target customers and improve the efficiency of their business operations. Accordingly, printing companies are also required to better address the needs of these clients more reliably and promptly.
Against this backdrop, Konica Minolta aims to provide printing companies with optimal solutions to enable them to create a seamless and efficient workflow, improve productivity, ensure stable quality, and offer new value-added ideas to their clients to help them widen the scope of their marketing activities. In doing so, Konica Minolta hopes to help printing companies expand their business activities and increase their profits.
The “Accurio” name reflects the advanced, automated and, most of all, accurate nature of Konica Minolta’s technology.
What’s new at Konica Minolta’s drupa stand (A65, Hall 8B)
Upholding the principle, “We enable your business and your customer’s business,” Konica Minolta will showcase its latest products and solutions that bring innovations to printing tasks and help printing companies expand their operations.
To give visitors a concrete image of how its products can work in an actual business environment, Konica Minolta will show the products in each zone of its booth in a manner that follows the work process of a fictional printing company that has undertaken an entire marketing campaign for a client.
1. AccurioJet KM-1 B2 digital inkjet press (new product)
The AccurioJet KM-1, which will be launched onto the market in June 2016, can produce high-quality images comparable to those of conventional sheet-fed offset printing. Furthermore, this product is highly acclaimed and can directly print on a wide variety of paper media, ranging from art paper, coated paper and wood-free paper to embossed paper and packaging paper. The versatile AccurioJet KM-1 is capable of serving general commercial printing to small-size packaging markets. At drupa 2016, demonstrations will be given to show how this product can produce high value-added printed materials when used with MGI’s JETvarnish.
The AccurioJet KM-1, B2 digital inkjet press, employs Konica Minolta’s inkjet head technology and ink design technology combined with the advanced image processing technology that Konica Minolta has developed in the area of toner-based digital printing. The product can print on sheets up to 585 mm x 750 mm in size, allowing effective impositions including 6-up imposition of US letter size and book cover printing, and is also capable of duplex printing. Also, Konica Minolta’s proprietary single-pass inkjet technology*2 combined with the high speed UV (HSUV) ink technology enables high-speed printing.
*2A printing method where a media-wide head array ejects inks on the media and completes image printing in a single pass. It enables higher speed printing than another printing method, which makes several passes to complete the image printing process.
2. Label and packaging printing zone
Labels and packages play an important role in communicating the characteristics of a company or brand to customers and cause them to select a particular product in preference to others. In this light, digital printing can help companies largely expand the scope of their marketing activities with its stable print quality and short production time, as well as deliver higher added value. Companies seeking ways to improve their marketing operations will find ideal solutions in the label and packaging printing zone in Konica Minolta’s booth.
In this zone, Konica Minolta will show how a combination of its bizhub PRESS C71cf, a digital label press capable of printing full-color labels at a high speed and JETvarnish, a product of MGI – a company that has a lot of experience and knowledge in embossing and varnishing – can reduce label print run lengths and production time and enable high-quality production of high value-added labels.
As a new application of the digital inkjet printing technology established in the development of the AccurioJet KM-1, Konica Minolta will also stage a technical showcase of the KM-C, B1 digital inkjet press for paper packages. This product can print on sheets up to 760 mm x 1,060 mm in size, with thicknesses ranging from 0.3 mm to 1.2 mm, and thus is capable of high-quality printing on various types of presentation boxes and thin corrugated boards.
3. AccurioPro, Konica Minolta’s printing solutions and services that ensure higher work efficiency and stable print quality
AccurioPro is the brand name of a series of digital printing solutions and services offered by Konica Minolta to promote automation of printing tasks with a view to improving work efficiency, reducing production time and ensuring effective quality control. At drupa 2016, Konica Minolta will showcase two collaborative software products, AccurioPro Cloud Eye, which enables cloud-based central management of printing tasks at multiple locations, and AccurioPro Conductor, which enables operation of multiple presses at a higher efficiency.