SGIA— EFI™ (Nasdaq:EFII), a world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, today began showcasing one of the industry's largest and most robust sign and display graphics printing portfolios at the SGIA EXPO, running through October 21 in New Orleans. Located in booth 701, EFI is featuring its VUTEk®, Rastek™ and Jetrion® lines of inkjet presses, together with the high-performance EFI Fiery® XF proServer. The company is also showing their industry-leading inkjet workflow bundles that fully integrate Web-to-Print and business automation software with Fiery XF RIPs and qualifying VUTEk GS Series inkjet printers.

"We're excited to be back at SGIA, one of the leading show venues in North America for the sign and display graphics market," said Scott Schinlever, senior vice president and general manager of inkjet solutions at EFI. "Visitors to our booth will find many new innovations since last year, including the breakthrough VUTEk GS3250lx with innovative LED ink curing, the first in its class. In addition, we have placed special focus on our workflow products, helping our customers eliminate bottlenecks and improve productivity and throughput to bring increased profitability to sign and display graphics businesses large and small."

Innovative VUTEk Inkjet Printers

The latest generation of VUTEk GS Series printers on display at SGIA are designed to expand the range of applications that can be created, increase throughput, boost profit potential, and integrate seamlessly via JDF with EFI Web-to-Print and MIS solutions for a streamlined, end-to-end production workflow.

The EFI VUTEk GS3250lx, a new addition to the GS family, is a breakthrough superwide format hybrid UV printer that features first-in-class innovative LED curing technology combined with proven UV ink technology. LED UV-curing extends the range of supported substrates and reduces production time and costs, significantly reducing total cost of ownership. Its ability to print on new types of thinner substrates enables new revenue streams, while enabling cost savings by printing on thinner, lower-cost versions of standard substrates. The VUTEk GS3250lx, which prints directly to rigid or flexible roll-to-roll substrates, satisfies customer demands for a greener printing solution with less waste, fewer consumables and decreased power consumption. It also increases productivity with its continuous board print mode.

Nick Olson, owner of PVS, which recently installed a VUTEk GS3250lx, has leveraged its capabilities to reduce costs and grow his business. He says, "The GS3250lx has enabled us to print on thinner substrates. This saves on both cost of materials and shipping. Now we can roll up output for shipping instead of using flat boxes, saving the customer about 30 percent on the job due to a lower cost of materials, as well as a 30 percent reduction in the cost of shipping. In addition, we are very excited about the new applications this printer has enabled, including the ability to print on aluminum (.020) and steel (22 gauge), wood, artist cotton canvas, .015 or thinner rigid materials, and thermoform PETG (.015-.020). It will certainly be a growth engine for our business."

The 3.2-meter EFI VUTEk GS3250r is designed to increase profitability by quickly and efficiently producing high-margin, closely viewed indoor applications with its 6-color, 1000 dpi image quality and UV roll-to-roll productivity. Its stunning print quality at high-speed ensures that customers will profit from increased production speeds and lower costs on a wider range of substrates and applications, and capture higher volume, premium-margin jobs with high quality point-of-purchase (P-O-P) output at up to 1,200 ft m2/hr (111 m2/hr). The VUTEk GS3250r includes multi-queue functionality and double-sided printing for added efficiency and capability. It comes standard with flexible co-branded EFI and 3M Premium UV Ink that increases application range and enables printing on a wider range of substrates, and output printed on 3M flexible media may qualify for 3M™ MCS™ Warranty.

The highly versatile EFI VUTEk GS5000r five-meter, roll-to-roll UV printer enables print shops to quickly and efficiently produce premium-margin jobs, like exhibition graphics, retail signage and digital textiles, as well as commercial graphics and long-term outdoor signage, including building wraps and fleet graphics, with one printer. For P-O-P image quality demands, it offers high-definition, eight-color plus optional white capability to produce life-like skin tones, smooth gradients and crisp four-point text. Users gain market-penetrating versatility with multi-roll printing on up to three 60-inch rolls simultaneously along with optional automated double-sided printing. It also comes standard with flexible co-branded EFI and 3M Premium UV Ink and qualifies for the 3M™ MCS™ Warranty when printing on 3M flexible media.

The EFI VUTEk TX3250r3.2 meter dye-sublimation textile printer, which will be featured in Hilord's booth 401, combines industrial productivity, high-quality output and application versatility to meet the growing demand and requirements of the soft signage and digital textile market. Its sublimation dyes offer rich, durable colors for polyester-based materials. With the ability to print direct to textile and transfer paper, the VUTEk TX3250r is an ideal solution for shops looking to grow their soft signage and textile business with the speeds of a production-level printer. It also enables users to diversify their offering by converting traditional vinyl signage to a product with lower shipping costs, a greener footprint, easier installation and higher margins.

Entry-level Production Wide-Format Rastek Printers

For smaller businesses, those just getting started in the sign and display graphics business, or those wanting to augment their printing capabilities, EFI Rastek printers are an ideal solution and can meet ROI requirements with as little as two hours per day of operation.

The EFI Rastek H652 UV hybrid printer produces stunning image quality on rigid and flexible media with variable drop grayscale print heads. With standard white ink printing capability and mid-level production speeds, it is an ideal solution for growing print shops taking their first step into true production printing. It also offers larger print shops additional capacity relief, production redundancy and specialty capabilities.

EFI's Rastek T1000 flatbed has a three-zone, 52" x 98" vacuum table with the versatility to quickly and easily handle materials up two inches thick, including difficult-to-handle substrates that require superior hold-down. With speeds up to 460 square feet per hour and grayscale print quality with resolution up to 1200 dpi, the T1000 is ideal for creating head-turning posters and point-of-purchase displays, along with specialty industrial applications such as membrane switches and packaging applications. The T1000 offers white ink capabilities with the ability to print in white at close to the same speed as CMYK, making it many times faster than others in its class. It is ideal for shops that want to enter traditional signage and specialty applications.

New Business Opportunities with Jetrion

Also at the EFI booth will be the Jetrion 4830 UV-curable digital inkjet label production printer. This innovative machine gives print service providers new business opportunities with digital color labels and small-format signage, extending users' portfolios of services and enabling them to tap into vertical revenue streams.

High-Performance Production Solution

The EFI Fiery XF proServer is a high-performance production solution designed exclusively for, but not limited to, VUTEk printers. It is designed for optimal performance of the Fiery XF software to provide unparalleled RIP speed and printer throughput to increase productivity, performance and efficiency on every job. The Fiery XF proServer is a scalable solution that improves printing, production and color capabilities with its expanded set of Fiery XF options, high-performance hardware platform and integration with other EFI products. An added benefit to customers is a complimentary 13-month support and maintenance plan on software and hardware, including free software upgrades and hardware replacement if needed.

Integrated Inkjet Workflow

"In today's highly competitive market," added Marc Olin, GM of EFI's Software Applications ("APPS") business unit, "putting a new press on the production floor is not sufficient to guarantee business success. As run lengths decline overall, and as the cross-over point between analog and digital continues to climb, the secret to success is a fully integrated production and business environment that eliminates as many manual touches as possible. That is why EFI has put tremendous effort into providing business and production solutions for the sign and display graphics market that ensure as much efficiency and automation as possible."

With this in mind, EFI is now offering three inkjet workflow bundles that provide fully integrated solutions. The integrated workflow provided by the combination of EFI Digital StoreFront® Web-to-Print platform and EFI Pace™ print management system to the Fiery XF RIP and qualifying VUTEk GS Series printer provides a powerful, sustainable process improvement opportunity. Together, these tools can boost customer's profit potential by virtually eliminating touch points, reducing waste, improving communication and maximizing capacity utilization.

Backed by tiered services, the three inkjet workflow integration options are:

EFI Pace Inkjet Production Manager
EFI Digital StoreFront for Wide Format
EFI Pace Automated Business Management with Digital StoreFront
EFI also offers custom solutions tailored to each customer's unique business needs.