Futuristic trend: print & beyond

Ricoh India educates printers on the applications and futuristic approach of digital printers in three major cities across India. A report.

SK Khurana, editor, ABP taking part in traditional lamp lighting in New Delhi along with Amila Singhvi, Anjana Saha, Manoj Kumar and Avijit Mukherjee.Ricoh India recently organised continuous feed education event titled ‘Futuristic Trend: Print & Beyond’ in three different locations – Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai. The three events were equally inspiring and informative for printers across these major cities. The format of the events was convincing, wherein the attendees were informed about the activities of Ricoh and its operations in India, how digital is complementing offset printing, its various applications, different models offered by Ricoh for varied application and case studies of different end-users joining the digital bandwagon.

Manoj Kumar, executive vice president and chief executive officer, Ricoh India informed the audience about Ricoh and its operations in India. Ricoh India Limited is a public limited company with 26.4 percent owned by Indian public and 73.6 percent by Ricoh Company, Limited, Japan. Founded in 1936, the Ricoh Group is headquartered in Tokyo. From printing & document solutions to IT services to communication systems, they have created offerings that address the ever-evolving and diverse needs of customers under a holistic umbrella. In India, Ricoh is a market leader in its key categories and enjoys immense customer confidence in the wide variety of products and solutions. In India, Ricoh operates through a robust network of 24 offices, and over 2,500 dealers and business associates spread across the country. “Under its corporate tagline, imagine. change., Ricoh helps companies transform the way they work and harness the collective imagination of their employees,” he shared.

While Avijit Mukherjee, chief operating officer, Production Printing Business Group at Ricoh India Limited focused on the paradigm changes in printing industry. “Digital printing will not replace offset,” he said, “it will complement offset process.” He also highlighted a valid point that paper do not contaminate environment, e-waste contaminates it. Avijit also focused on the use of digital printing in book publishing industry wherein it can be used to physically print at different locations as and when required, thereby saving huge inventory and transportation costs. “Book publishing industry works on speculative inventory model, which is a challenge with new authors and this is where digital printing fits in perfectly,” he said.

Anjana Saha, national business and marketing manager, Ricoh India, highlighted the cutting-edge technology of Ricoh, especially the continuous feed inkjet printers. She informed that there has been a rise of 15 percent in colour digital pages in North America while in Western Europe, the growth has been 12 percent. “Almost 67.2 billion colour pages were printed by digital, of which 34 percent were printed by high speed continuous feed. Of these, 53 percent were transactional printing while books accounted for 18 percent,” she shared.

Anjana also focused on Ricoh InfoPrint 5000 GP models, which enable full-colour, monochrome and MICR printing on a wide range of paper stocks and at a variety of speeds. “Colourful graphics and personalised printing makes information easier to understand, which can help open new revenue opportunities in fast-changing markets,” she said.

While, Roger Burkhardt, sales support HAS, Hunkeler AG, Switzerland shared their range of finishing solutions comprises modules for unwinding and winding, cutting, punching and stacking, all of it rounded off by their web inspection system for continuous print and quality monitoring. He also invited attendees to the Hunkeler Innovationdays to be held for the 11th time at the Messe Lucerne exhibition facility from February 23 to 26, 2015.

Subhasis Ganguly, vice president production & content management at Penguin Books India, discussed the future trends in publishing. He specifically highlighted a few real-life incidents when digital printing had helped them gain a cutting edge. For example, the title The Accidental Prime Minister, which was planned with a print run of 8,000 copies, sold 47,000 copies in 17 days, with six reprints and few copies were also printed digitally. Similarly, their book Unrealistic Elections sold 5,000 copies of which 250 were digitally printed. “Lot of money goes waste in stocking and later pulping the unused stocks, hence for books whose sales cannot be gauged beforehand, digital is the best option,” he said. He also mentioned about Print on Demand, vanity publishing and personalised children books, which are seeing good scope with digital printing.

While, a spokesperson from Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation (India) Ltd (CESC) shared the success story of their company, wherein they have used digital printers to print variable data on the electric bills. This variable data has the best applications like advertisements targeted at specific strata, age and gender.

The Mumbai event was attended by end-users like Mail Order Solutions (I) Pvt Ltd, Kadam Digital, Seshasai and a delegation from Mumbai Mudrak Sangh, among many others. And Delhi event was attended by publishers and printers like Pratham Books, Sterling Publishers, International Print-o-Pac, Gopsons, Replika, Avantika, Directorate of Printing – Government of India and a group delegation from Delhi Printers’ Association, to name a few.

The Chennai event was also attended by many participants including Multivista Global, Scitech Publications, Seenu Prints, Rajams Digital Offset, Sharp Offset, Platinum Printer, SSE Print Points, AV Prints, Hi-Tech Offset, Maruthi Graphics and members of MPLA.