In this article, David looks at the current state of Xerox. The integration of Impika has produced some exciting collaboration, resulting in some new product introductions at drupa 2016, and perhaps a glimpse of the company’s future direction
By now you have probably heard that Xerox will be splitting into two publically traded companies: A Services company and a company dedicated to the business of its roots, printing and copying equipment and processes. In light of that welcome news, it may make sense to look at Xerox as a new company with lots of new opportunities.
In my first article on Xerox, I looked at the company history and CiPress, its initial entry into production inkjet. Subsequently I wrote a deep dive introduction into Impika, its products, and its extensive experience in inkjet technologies. Since those initial articles in 2012, Xerox acquired Impika, creating a company with an incredible breadth of inkjet technologies to tap into. At the 2015 Hunkeler Innovation Days event in Lucerne, Switzerland, Xerox released its first Xerox-branded product, the Xerox RialtoTM 900, to industry accolades. It is a unique ‘business color’ roll-to-sheet production inkjet press in an A4 format with a small footprint. It was also one of the first production inkjet solutions offered at a price point well below $1M ($600-700K). With that introduction, in my estimation, the reintroduction of Xerox began, and its redefinition of the production inkjet marketplace as well. At drupa 2016, Xerox will be presenting more examples of its vision of the new production inkjet marketplace.
Imaging
As I mentioned earlier, Xerox has an extensive breadth of inkjet technologies available to tap into for product creation. These include the ‘phase change’ technology originally acquired with Tektronix, the flexible and intelligent application of 3rd party inkjet heads acquired with Impika, research and product development being done at Xerox PARC, and access to partner Fujifilm’s Dimatix division if they so desire.
In its currently available production inkjet product line up, Xerox is using a range of these technologies. CiPress continues to use the waterless phase change DoD 600 dpi printhead which allows printing on lower-cost offset media without any priming. The Rialto 900 and the new Brenva HD use the piezo electric DoD Kyocera KJ4B printheads which are native 600 dpi, printing 4 grey levels. The Evolution, Compact, and Reference presses as well as the new Trivor 2400 use the Panasonic DoD series 420 printheads and prints a variety of fixed selectable drop sizes and resolution at native 600 dpi.
However, if you have been reading this series, by now you understand that it’s not just which printheads you use but rather, how you use them that affects the printer’s quality and performance. For example, many other printer manufacturers use the Kyocera KJ4B and like Xerox have creatively enhanced the printhead operation. An example would be the addition of ‘pre-fire’ by Canon on the ColorStream 3000, or multi drop modulation on the VarioPrint i300. On the Brenva HD, Xerox brings the flexibility to adjust the drop size, speed and resolution based on the needs of the job. On the Compact, Reference, Evolution, and Trivor 2400, Xerox employs the Impika-developed VHQ mode, which uses two different channels on the Panasonic printhead to send two different drop sizes, instead of one nozzle for three drops in a standard grayscale mode. The benefits are minimization of any nozzle drop flight time effects, better registration and a higher quality visual appearance. Since VHQ requires two printhead channels, currently VHQ is available in full color only on the Evolution, and monochrome on the Trivor, Compact and Reference. I would assume that it will become a full color option on their other models as they continue their new product and feature development. Finally, this year Xerox increased the printhead frequency from 30 kHz to 40 kHz, increasing the press throughput by about 30%.
