Ipex 2002 Readies for Launch

Next month, the world's biggest graphic arts show this year will be staged at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham, a city of nearly a million people located in the Midlands of the United Kingdom (U.K.), in an area called the "birthplace" of the Industrial Revolution.

Participating in the exposition, expected to fill nearly a million square feet of floor space in 15 enormous halls at the NEC complex, will be more than 1,200 companies, half of them from outside the U.K. and representing about 30 nations. The companies will occupy upwards of 700 individual exhibits.

And like other shows in the Ipex series, this year's event will certainly be international in scope; organizers have promoted the show in about 130 countries, placed 500 ads, and distributed more than 625,000 ticket inserts via leading trade magazines.

This year, visitor registrations—80% of which are being carried out on line at ipex.org, where complete show information is available—are running ahead of the pace of the 1998 show at this stage in the run-up to the expo. Four years ago, say show organizers, more than 90,000 visitors attended, about one-third from outside the U.K.

Besides being about 10% larger in size and scope than the 1998 edition, Ipex 2002 features a multitude of visitor attractions, tours, conferences, and other highlights.

PrintCity, a strategic, cooperative display showing the networking and cross-platform capabilities of various vendors' "best in class" open-architecture products and systems, brings together about 40 companies, led by Agfa and MAN Roland. The exhibit, which promotes the use of networks and knowledge management, is organized into three print process groups (web systems, sheetfed, and digital) and three market application groups (publishing, commercial, and packaging).

MAN Roland's Rainer Kuhn, general manager of PrintCity, says the PrintCity concept shows customers and prospects how they can benefit from the shared, cooperative efforts of a number of vendors. MegTec's Helmut J. Dangelmaier, PrintCity president, says the concept promotes industry progress merely by placing experts so close together.

In other news, Converflex@Ipex is a dedicated event for converting and flexographic technologies at Ipex, and a special Upex display focuses on used and remanufactured equipment.

Xerox Corporation has gained notoriety for booking the largest single display at Ipex, accounting for over 72,000 square feet of space and having the theme, The New Business of Printing. Xerox has announced that it will begin taking orders on April 9 for its DocuColor iGen3 digital production press, which it introduced at the Print 01 show in Chicago in September.

With a focus on Future Print Now, the company and a number of its partners plan to emphasize the importance of digital technology in areas as diverse as new media, digital print solutions utilizing variable-data imaging, and customer relationship management (CRM).

Pira International, a research and consulting operation based in the U.K., has organized a program of nine three-hour tours, designed to help visitors make the best use of their time at the show. Each tour, to be held twice daily (except on the first and last days of the expo) and priced at about $200 per person, will be conducted by experienced industry consultants.

Pira's Gold Star tour will examine a broad cross-section of leading-edge technologies and trends. Additional tours will address specific topics, including major developments for book and magazine publishers; highlights of digital print; developments in computer-to-plate and direct-imaging (DI) presses; digital workflow; effective advertising solutions; management information systems and e-commerce; commercial digital printing and variable data; and advances in packaging print.

Note the range of exhibitors' approaches and innovations suggested by the following sampling. Not all offerings will be available in the U.S. and some may have different designations.

Atlas Software says its PrintShop Mail variable-data printing tool will be demonstrated by a number of Ipex exhibitors, such as Canon, Creo, Electronics For Imaging, Heidelberg, Hewlett-Packard, Konica, MAN Roland, Minolta, Océ, Xeikon, Xerox, and others.

basysPrint will show its four- and eight-page UV-Setter computer-to-conventional-plate models, featuring SWiNG workflow, basysPrint Navigator, and AutoCIP CIP3 interface, plus Lucid Dream's PrintFlow interface linking Heidelberg's Delta RIP to any PostScript printer.

DALiM Software will launch Internet-based remote viewing, digital proofing, and management tools; a world-first capability to unlock proprietary workflows; and a new version of its LiTHO page viewer and editor.

Dotrix will debut as a Barco Graphics spinoff, offering digital workflow solutions, including the.factory ("the dot factory"), a high-speed digital color press using ink-jet technology, which is now commercially available.

Electronics For Imaging will showcase its new digital computer-to-plate (CTP) workflow solution that, combined with its front-end architecture and advanced prepress capabilities, is said to offer a total "proof to plate" PDF-based solution. Also on display: Fiery Graphic Arts Package and Fiery System 5 software, version 2.2 of its Velocity Balance workflow software, plus PrintMe Networks, an Internet-based printing solution offering access anytime anywhere without need for cables or set-up.

Global Graphics Hardware will launch a violet diode imaging version of its Cirrus 2 CTP system, a new ICG vertical drum scanner, and a range of flexo and offset plate processors. Global Graphics Software will debut its Jaws PDF Courier configurable software development kit and its Jaws PDF Server, which features Jaws PDF Creator and is powered by MaxWorkFlow.

GMG will show ColorProof technology, which it calls the most accurate way to calibrate a digital ink-jet proofing engine to produce digital contract color proofs matched to the actual printing press, along with a new DotProof option. Five exhibitors will demonstrate the products: basysPrint, Epson, Fujifilm, Hewlett-Packard, and Turning Point Technologies.

Heidelberg, which plans to emphasize process integration via its Prinect system for production, management, and quality control, will present five market solutions: industrial print, digital print, commercial print, commercial web, and postpress. It also will demonstrate its prepress-to-press Print Color Management service.

Indigo will, for the first time, be showing its range of digital color presses as a part of Hewlett-Packard, following HP's acquisition in September of all outstanding shares.

Kodak Polychrome Graphics will use a movie theme—complete with movie star lookalikes—to highlight the debut of its Premier hard-dot recording film line, plus the "cast" of products from Imation Color Technologies, including Matchprint Color, and Approval XP proofer, plus Kodak Professional/Encad systems, along with technologies from partners Creo and Screen. A new Printers Enviroservices Program handles complete waste disposal.

Körber PaperLink plans to demonstrate the Alpha RF automatic book machine from E.C.H. Will, the HS 542 single- and double-wire binding machine from Kugler-Womako, and the Grec large-format wrapping machine from Wrapmatic.

MAN Roland, under its new theme Networking the Value Chain, will focus on the integration of all its sheetfed and web systems, which have been newly designed. Highlights for its 40" Roland 700 sheetfed press include a thick-sheet reversing system for carton applications, an in-line sorter for ejecting misfed sheets, non-stop delivery, in-line perforating, and a roll-to-sheet feeder. The company's Pecom system will be applied to newspaper and commercial web production, and the DicoWeb will be shown as a large-size heatset press.

Pressure Seal Systems will debut three systems for business forms production: PS200c, a combined, continuous-feed bursting/folding/sealing machine; PS300, rated at up to 9,000 forms per hour; and an easily set-up PS500, which can process up to 18,000 forms per hour.

QTI will unveil—for its new, network-based Icon on-press, closed-loop register control platform—a specially designed camera for its RGS Vector connection that can scan an entire cylinder circumference with up to 30 image captures per second. Quickly finding register marks reduces press makeready time and precision monitoring increases quality, says QTI.

Vio plans to launch AMPS (acquire media protocol suite), which is designed to replace enhanced FTP as Vio's transfer mechanism in its core digital workflow application enabling customers to transmit large files over the Internet. Vio says the enhancement is suitable for any IP network.