Heidelberg looks to inkjet future with Fujifilm

The world’s biggest offset press manufacturer Heidelberg is making a major strategic move into inkjet solutions, in order it says to open up a new world of opportunities for printers, writes Australian Printer editor Wayne Robinson from Germany.

Heidelberg will develop B1 sized inkjet sheetfed presses for commercial and packaging printers, an inkjet label press, and an inkjet object printer. The label press will be out by this year, the object printer is going to its first customer this month, there is no firm timescale yet for the sheetfed B1 presses.

The press giant has just opened up a new partnership with Fujifilm as a core plank in its inkjet strategy, and has Fujifilm inkjet kit in its R&D facility including a JetPres 540W. The company let international trade press editors into its R&D labs for the first time in its history this week in order to let the print world know the company’s direction.

Heidelberg has now allocated a third of its R&D budget for digital printing, with its CEO Dr Gerold Linzbach describing inkjet as ‘key’ to the the future development of print.

Linzbach also says that in a major strategic change Heidelberg has also recognised that it needs to work with ‘partner’ companies as part of a more ‘humble’ approach.

First out of the Heidelberg inkjet blocks is the inkjet label press which will be shown later this year. It is a three way co-operation between Heidelberg, Gallus (which is 30 per cent owned by Heidelberg) and Fujifilm. Heidelberg says it will be a success in the increasingly crowded digital label colour press market because it will be a ‘no-compromise’ digital label press offering speed, quality at 1200 x 1200dpi, and flexibility with inline finish and embellishment, and will print on all regular label substrates.

The so called 4D object printer is designed to print onto and shape and any size of object, from bottles to aeroplanes. Heidelberg will bring in robot technology according to application. The first systems has just been sold to German printer FlyerAlarm, which is a web-to-print outfit using Heidelberg presses. In the lab the 4D printer was printing onto soccer balls.

The B1 sheetfed press is currently in the development stage, but Heidelberg says it is committed to bringing the press to market, and will aim them at commercial and packaging printers with short run work in the region of 250 to 2500 sheets as well as printers wanting variable data capabilities.

The new partnership with Fujifilm will not impact on Heidelberg’s relationship with Ricoh, the two digital print companies are in different markets with Ricoh supplying cut sheet toner based printers. There are also no joint development plans with Ricoh.

Like all major press manufacturers Heidelberg has been hit hard by the GFC, it had to be rescued by the regional and federal German governments, and it recognises that its offset press sales will never reach the pre-GFC heights. Turnover at Heidelberg is barely half the Euro3bn that it was, and the 20,000 staff have been cut back to 12,000. However CEO Linzbach says the restructuring phase for Heidelberg is ‘over’ and this new partnership with Fujifilm represents a strategic forward move.

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