London – Hansaprint, a leading innovative printing house in the Nordic region and part of the TS-Group, is discovering new markets, being the first in the world to order the new Ricoh Pro VC60000 continuous feed production inkjet platform. 

“I believe our clients will benefit, from day one, from higher print quality and a wider variety of substrates enabled by this new press. But in the long run, the greatest benefit for our end users and for us is the ability to produce new and innovative products that we are not producing today,” explains Jukka Saariluoma, Business Unit Director, of Hansaprint, an E70m turnover and 350 employee strong firm specialising in retail and publishing.

Hansaprint will at first produce loyalty programmes, direct mail, transpromo, transactional and books but Mr Saariluoma expects there to be a significant shift of volumes to inkjet both from offset and toner printing. He expands: “Before the Ricoh Pro VC60000, inkjet printing has been viewed as a lesser quality. But all of that changes with this investment. Inkjet is coming alive and we are ready to change that perception.”

Hansaprint has invested in two Ricoh Pro VC60000 modular systems. Designed to be the most versatile colour inkjet press available on the market Ricoh Pro VC60000 is powered by the TotalFlow Print Server R600A, Ricoh’s own Digital Front End, developed to meet the challenges of demanding graphic arts environments and applications. With Ricoh-developed long-lasting print heads and high viscosity water-based pigment inks, itachieves a physical resolution of up to 1200x1200 dpi with dynamic variable drop size within each pixel to provide significant additional perceived print quality. It can run at nearly 100,000 A4 images per hour; and provides support for uncoated, coated offset, inkjet digital coated and treated, and recycled papers.

The Hansaprint order includes an undercoat unit which enables it to print on a broad variety of media, including offset coated stocks; a protector coat unit to deliver “scratch & scuff resistance”; and the optional hot air knife dryers for additional ink drying capability.

Hansaprint has a long history in printing and are pioneers in full colour inkjet printing. It also offers heatset web printing along with variable data printing using both inkjet and toner based technologies. “Consistently high print quality across the entire operation is critical to us and to our customers,” Mr Saariluoma comments: “We must also be able to change from one material to another in a very short time. The one thing we saw as a huge benefit with the Ricoh Pro VC60000 was that Ricoh manufactures both the heads and the ink, which we believe gives us more control over print quality.”

As for investing with Ricoh, Mr Saariluoma states: “Ricoh don’t just sell the product, ship it and install it. Rather, they want to work together with us to make the investment a success..”

Mr Saariluoma concludes: “Prior to experiencing the Ricoh Pro VC60000, I did not believe that there would be a major shift from offset printing to inkjet. But the Ricoh Pro VC60000 made me change my mind. Our clients have seen the samples, too, and are very excited by the new level in quality and the increased flexibility offered by moving significant amounts of their work from offset to inkjet.”

The Ricoh Pro VC60000 will receive its first public showing at Hunkeler Innovationdays, 23-26 February, Lucerne, Switzerland.