Faster turnarounds, shorter print runs and greater media flexibility are reshaping investment priorities across the commercial print sector.
As those demands continue to evolve, Production Print Direct (PPD) has seen a marked shift in the technologies its customers are looking to adopt, with digital production increasingly becoming the platform of choice for businesses seeking greater productivity and flexibility.
The latest addition to PPD’s portfolio, the Konica Minolta AccurioPress C7090 Enhanced, reflects that changing landscape. Rather than simply introducing another production press, the company sees the technology as addressing many of the operational challenges facing modern print businesses as digital volumes continue to grow.
“We have seen our customers’ digital volumes increase significantly over the last five years. The demand for same-day production and much faster turnaround times continues to grow, which means productivity has become absolutely critical.”
Automated advancement
One of the most common issues PPD identified through working with customers was maintaining productivity when printing onto heavier substrates. While many digital presses perform efficiently on lighter stocks, production speeds often reduce significantly once media exceeds around 175gsm, creating bottlenecks for applications including premium marketing collateral, packaging and presentation materials.
For businesses producing an increasingly diverse mix of work, that loss of productivity can have a direct impact on both efficiency and profitability.
Mike adds: “The C7090 Enhanced was really a no-brainer for us. It maintains full production speed from 60gsm right through to 400gsm, which completely changes what customers can achieve within the same production window.”
The press combines vacuum-fed media handling, long-sheet capability and Konica Minolta’s IQ-501 intelligent quality optimisation system to automate colour management, registration and quality control. By reducing manual intervention while maintaining consistent output across a broad range of substrates, the technology is designed to help print businesses increase throughput without extending production hours.
A sharper tool
According to PPD, another significant advantage is the ability to store media profiles within the controller, allowing colour calibration, registration and stock settings to be recalled automatically whenever a repeat job is produced.
“Once a substrate has been profiled, it is there for future work,” Mike explains, adding: “That repeatability gives customers confidence that they will achieve the same quality every time, while significantly reducing set-up times.”
The platform has also been designed to integrate with existing finishing equipment, allowing businesses to expand into applications requiring lamination, foiling and specialist finishing processes without fundamentally changing established production workflows.
For Mike, that flexibility is becoming increasingly important as commercial printers seek to maximise the value of existing equipment while broadening the range of work they can produce.
“The more flexible your digital production becomes, the wider the range of work you can accept,” he says, adding: “Businesses want to make better use of the equipment they already own while expanding the applications they can profitably produce.”
More than technology
While advances in press technology continue to accelerate, Ashforth believes the role of a technology supplier extends well beyond supplying equipment.
“Our business has always been built around service,” he says, adding: “By specialising in a focused portfolio of technologies, we are able to develop genuine expertise, respond quickly when customers need support and help them identify the right solutions for their production requirements.”
Working with Konica Minolta for cut-sheet production and Mimaki for wide-format inkjet, Production Print Direct continues to support commercial printers as investment priorities shift towards faster, more automated and increasingly versatile digital production. For the company, the introduction of the AccurioPress C7090 Enhanced is another example of how technology is evolving to meet changing production demands, rather than simply delivering faster print.
