(June 11, 2008) This week at drupa, visitors to Xerox’s stand, 8b/A78, saw more than 50 real-world digital printing applications being produced live by Xerox and its customers. Attendees learned how to produce these solutions by visiting conversation stations where the demonstrations took place. New business applications and collateral pieces were two of six types of applications on display, including the following examples:

•    A folding carton Stora Enso Gallop solution, co-developed by Xerox, for the pharmaceutical industry that combines digital printing with customized packaging technologies. At drupa, attendees learned how an integrated, in-line workflow solution is necessary to deliver cost-effective short-run packaging. A demonstration of the carton printing was shown using a Xerox iGen3® 110 Digital Production Press and visitors learned how Xerox FreeFlow® VIPP™ Pro Publisher handles variable data and the Epic CTi-635™ Inline Coater, with UV and aqueous coating options, apply the appropriate coating. The stacker-conveyer then precisely aligns the printed stacks and delivers them to an in-line Stora Enso Gallop DC 58 die cutter. "The integrated solution offers the possibility to print individual, variable data on each package cost-effectively," said Jonas Pettersson, product and sales manager, at Stora Enso Digital Solutions NV.

•    Highly-personalized full-color, 20 to 80 page travel booklets produced by BigXtra, part of Frosch Touristik GmbH, that integrates individual airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rental services and transfer-vouchers along with country information into one specialized package. The one personalized booklet – rather than three to four generic brochures – is shipped to a customer within 48 hours of placing an online reservation. BigXtra works with Diamond Systems to integrate data from various travel service providers, into a Microsoft SQL database that then validates information and outputs it to a Xerox FreeFlow VIPP Pro data stream, which is then sent to a Xerox FreeFlow VI Interpreter running on a Creo® print server. Visitors to the Xerox drupa stand watched the printing of the booklets on a Xerox iGen3 110 Digital Production Press. Booklets are then cut, perforated, trimmed, block-stitched and spine-tapped using a Muller Martini machine.

The Stora Enso packaging application provides green advantages for print providers, as digital printing largely avoids the chemicals associated with traditional printing processes, many Xerox iGen3 replaceable units are designed for return and recycling and the print-on-demand model enabled by digital printing avoids waste. The real-life application for BigXtra allows for personalization, while being environmentally-friendly by being printed six-up to maximize sheet usage, cutting mailing costs by more than 33 percent, all while reducing warehouse needs.

For more information on Xerox’s drupa activities, visit http://www.xerox.com/drupa.