Kodak has outlined the products on which it will pin its ‘make-or-break’ DRUPA plans, in a media briefing in Lisbon, Portugal today.

It will unveil ten new digital solutions and more than 30 industry partners at the May show in Düsseldorf.

Key digital printing systems get a boost in speed, with a new 305 metres/minute Prosper 6000XL inkjet web, and a Prosper S30 version of the company’s inkjet imprinting system now rated at  almost 1000 metres/minute.

The 6000XL’s speed is equivalent to the web speed of an offset newspaper press running at 30,000 cph, while the imprinting head – designed to add variable data to the web of an offset press – will now keep pace with all but the fastest newspaper and heatset webs.

The new Prosper 6000XL joins existing 1000 and 5000XL models. Kodak says it is up to 45 per cent more cost effective than high-volume thermal drop-on-demand presses and up to 31 per cent more cost effective than the Prosper 5000XL.

The Stream inkjet technology behind these developments also powers a new Timson press, dubbed the T-Press and the product of a partnership with the long-established UK book press maker.

At 1350 mm web width and up to 200 metres/minute, the T-Press will be the “fastest, widest digital inkjet press available for the production of black-and-white trade and textbooks”, the partners say. The fully digital duplex, monochrome book printing system is manufactured by Timsons and powered by Kodak’s Stream inkjet technology. Clays, the book division of UK-based St. Ives Group will be the first user.

It will be shown at DRUPA teamed with a T-Fold finishing system inline with a Kolbus binding system.

A new ‘paper rating programme’ and optional ‘image optimiser’ pretreatment station will give printers the freedom to print inkjet on any substrate, the company says.

The S30 is being beta-tested at the Axel Springer newspaper plant in Ahrensburg, near Hamburg, where it is mounted on a manroland press to imprint variable components such as consecutive lottery numbers, QR codes and changing artwork, across a width of up to 105 mm at production speeds.

Other products likely to impact the newspaper and commercial web segments include the Sonora XP process-free plates and Achieve ‘all-in-one’ CTP system, designed to ease the transition to thermal CTP. There are also upgrades of workflow production tools and the Insite prepress portal – which can be managed via an iPad app – Colorflow colour management and Preps imposition.

Achieve will be introduced first in the Asia-Pacific, with other emerging markets to follow.