Pankaj Kalra talks about Xerox’s expectations and offering for Drupa 2012

Drupa 2012 has time and again been called the litho-slayer, with a definite focus on digital and especially inkjet production printer manufacturers. We spoke to Pankaj Kalra, head - graphic communications business, Xerox India about Xerox’s expectations and offerings at Drupa 2012.

17 Apr 2012 | By Supreeth Sudhakaran

PrintWeek India (PWI): Xerox's overall expectations from Drupa?
Pankaj Kalra (PK): At Drupa, Xerox will demonstrate a wide portfolio of digital technologies available today, try to leverage its heritage of innovation and showcase the next wave of market changing technology.

PWI: Xerox's key innovations and digital printing equipment that would be showcased?
PK: We have an array of offering at the show. Xerox will demonstrate the patented waterless ink technology on the CiPress 500 production inkjet system, which eliminates the need for special treated paper, extra print heads and bonding agents. It provides a flat sheet output because of the waterless printing process or inks. Its intelligent scan bar detects and corrects missing jets automatically.

The Xerox iGen4 Exp press will be at the stand as well. The iGen4 Exp press features automated web-to-finish solution and provides a touch-less workflow from web-based ordering to prepress, printing and finishing, with no manual setup or intervention. Also the 26-inch (660 mm) sheet kit expands the applications one can offer.

Another noteworthy technology from Xerox will be the 770 digital colour presses, which is equipped with automated colour quality suite (ACQS). With its inline spectrophotometer it lets the user increase quality and consistency and comes with a suite of finishing options including face-trimming, saddle-stitching, punching, square-folding, trimming, stacking, multi-position stapling, and tri-folding. The duplex press can print on coated paper of up to 300gsm in thickness. Xerox will also demonstrate nearline packaging and automated book factory solutions.

PWI: Key trends in the digital printing market?
PK: Digital printing industry is seeing significant transformations with new technologies and applications being developed every day. These new technologies provide cost effective and customised solutions. 

Digital printing/print on-demand (POD) solutions for packaging is starting to transform packaging design and inventory management. Driven by time-starved and cost-sensitive customers, retailers are focusing on making shopping more pleasant for their customers. The Indian packaging industry is pegged at $17-billion; has been growing at 15% year-on-year and expected to touch $40 billion by 2015.

Xerox also sees tremendous growth and potential in the area of personalised printing which takes printing to a different level in consumer experience. Digital printing combined with a streamlined workflow is the ideal combination for short-run book publishing. Similarly, the web-to-print market in India is targeted towards SME and corporate users. Web-to-print solutions handle personalisation and distribution of marketing materials for corporate, and this change is driven by enterprise clients seeking a single repository tool to manage all marketing efforts including print.