OREANDA-NEWS. FUJIFILM Corporation (President: Shigehiro Nakajima) today announces a partnership with EPAC Technologies to create the long awaited true automated system to fulfill the demands of the printing industry. With the partnership, Fujifilm will unveil its “5D Printing Strategy” at drupa 2016, to showcase the future vision for the digital commercial market.

“Fujifilm presents the first step in its revolutionary 5D Printing Solution,” announced Takuo Ito, Director & Corporate Vice President of FUJIFILM Global Graphic Systems. “On top of the three evolutionary dimensions of printing technologies — offset printing, digital printing, and 3D printing — Fujifilm’s 5D Printing will create two new paradigms in the printing industry with Fujifilm’s “true” offset quality in digital printing and — in partnership with EPAC Technologies — game-changing print automation.”

Since 2012, Fujifilm has made remarkable contributions to the commercial digital press sector: the Jet Press 720S, a B2 sheet-fed digital press, is now the market leader in the “true” offset transfer digital press market with over 70 units installation worldwide; the Jet Press 540W, a roll to roll digital press, has created unique value for the book publishing market.

At drupa 2016, Fujifilm will provide a glimpse of the 5D Printing future. Fujifilm will be bringing the heads from the Jet Press 720S press to roll-fed digital press. At Drupa, Fujifilm is demoing 1200 dpi inkjet heads, prior to the game changing Jet Press 720S print heads being introduced. To see what the future of roll-fed printing can look like on normal paper, one only has to see the JetPress 720S. This development has been realized with the unique and industry leading “FUJIFILM Inkjet Technology”, which consists of unmatched printhead, ink, image optimisation technologies and integration capability, showcased at A25 in Hall 8b.

Fujifilm also introduces a new kind of automation in partnership with EPAC Technologies. EPAC invented and engineered a revolutionary automation strategy based on the fundamental principle of non-linearity. Powered by its development of the world’s fastest industrial robots and propriety algorithms, EPAC provides a revolutionary digital printing solution: E2. EPAC’s “non-linear” automation production combines the best printing technology and the best bindery equipment in a fully automated, multi-dimensional system that can produce any quantity at prices that displace most of the offset world. E2 technology enables processes that are infinitely scalable and flexible, presenting opportunities far beyond anything else on the market. For book manufacturing, for example, the E2 systems combine the best components for printing, cutting, binding, trimming and sorting orders for delivery to bookstores or the end user through automated processes that do not involve any human intervention, dramatically reducing costs while simultaneously increasing quality and reliability.

In 2016, Fujifilm and EPAC established initial production systems in the US, Europe and Latin America that incorporate JetPress and EPAC’s E2 technology, including a new ink. The partnership brings to the commercial print market the ultimate short run, full-automation, zero-waste printing system with “true” offset quality. Sasha Dobrovolsky, CEO of EPAC Technology, stated “Fujifilm has amazing technology and the combination of the two companies’ technologies will bring solutions that people can only dream of today.”

Combining the industry leading “FUJIFILM Inkjet Technology” and unmatched automation flexibility from EPAC, Fujifilm will lead digitization of the commercial printing market. The 5D Printing Solution Strategy will be showcased at drupa Hall 8b Fujifilm booth.