Ricoh Americas Corporation announced its newest continuous feed platform, the RICOH Pro VC60000, marking a milestone in the evolution of its production print inkjet portfolio.
The new system, coupled with Ricoh’s software offerings, enables a more rapid shift from offset to digital as commercial printers focus on data-driven applications and workflows requiring high performance color inkjet presses with vibrant print quality and increased media flexibility. The RICOH Pro VC60000, capable of producing more than 100,000 letter images per hour, provides a function-rich total solution for customers new to digital color, and for those already using digital print but wanting to consolidate and streamline their operations. This model joins several other exciting offerings being announced in the lead-up to GRAPH EXPO 14 in Chicago, September 28 – October 1, 2014, where many of Ricoh’s offerings will be on display in Booth #1931.
The 2014 MUST SEE ‘EM award-winning RICOH Pro VC60000, expected to begin shipping in early 2015, uses Ricoh’s next generation drop-on-demand print heads and high density pigment inks, resulting from its 25 years of experience in developing core inkjet technologies. These new print heads are capable of physical resolutions up to 1200 by 1200 dots per inch. Utilizing the RICOH Pro VC60000’s dynamic variable drop technology, customers can produce near-offset quality documents. With the optional undercoat unit, commercial printers can run a variety of offset coated gloss stocks with output quality comparable to what they expect from offset devices. An optional inline protector coating unit provides scratch and scuff resistance to protect critical documents.
“The RICOH Pro VC60000 is important for the industry because it’s going to help the offset printing community transition to becoming more efficient. Its print quality will provide customers with the ability to shift jobs to digital that frankly haven’t been profitable on offset,” said Marco Boer, vice president at IT Strategies. “It will help commercial printers, in-plants and service bureaus to compress run lengths and operate more cost-effectively, while maintaining high quality at a throughput that wasn’t viable until today. This will change many printers’ perceptions of inkjet quality for the better.”
Based on open standard architectures, the RICOH Pro VC60000 uses a new Ricoh state-of-the-art Digital Front End (DFE) that provides native support for PDF, PDF/VT and AFP together with JDF and advanced color management support. This high performance DFE is optimized for complex data-driven graphic communications, and provides an easy-to-use operator interface and advanced workflow management, leveraging Ricoh’s extensive experience in mission-critical variable data processing. Ricoh’s software, solutions, and strategic partner offerings complement the RICOH Pro VC60000 and include an unrivaled suite of tools and utilities that give customers several options to increase their efficiency and productivity. Examples include:
- RICOH ProcessDirector
- RICOH TotalFlow Path
- RICOH TotalFlow BatchBuilder
- Avanti MIS technology
- PTI Marketing Technologies
“With more than 70 billion impressions to date, Ricoh’s InfoPrint 5000 family, the first continuous feed drop-on-demand inkjet solution for high-volume production, has led the market for six years running,” said Tim Vellek, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “We were the first to deliver AFP, PostScript, and PDF native to the control unit; and the first to provide customers a suite of ink management tools. The RICOH Pro VC60000, developed by the industry’s most experienced inkjet production team, complements our current portfolio and leads the way into the future of production print. Ricoh’s ongoing commitment to innovation means that commercial print and corporate clients can confidently select from our broad and ever-expanding portfolio of products, services, and solutions to support the profitable growth of their businesses.”
With its modular architecture, the RICOH Pro VC60000 supports a variety of configuration options to give customers the flexibility to meet their needs. The new platform is highly scalable and has been designed with future enhancements and field upgrades in mind to protect customers’ investments in hardware, software, and infrastructure as their businesses grow and requirements change.
