Agfa has entered what it says is a new era in high-speed inkjet printing, not with web-fed but rather sheetfed production.

London-based customer the Delta Group has completed beta testing of its new Speedset Orca digital press using a versatile single-pass water-based system. Agfa says that after a successful installation and testing phase, the press is now on daily production and is going onto shift work – seen as a major milestone in the Orca’s journey to full commercial availability.

Delta chief operating officer Martin Shipp (pictured) says the new press has exceeded their high hopes: “It offers speed, quality and sustainability benefits that are key to our digital transformation.

“The press is so versatile that we can utilise it for a wide variety of applications using different fibre-based substrates. We can run jobs that we would have traditionally run on our offset lines, giving us much more flexibility on the production floor without compromising quality.”

Agfa is hoping the Orca will prove to be the most productive B1 Inkjet press on the market, with top speeds of up to 11,000 B1 sph and the flexibility to be more cost-effective on short run jobs while offering quality comparable to offset and flexo.

Offset-like quality, a wide colour gamut, and inline digital primer and varnishing capabilities mean it can be used to complement existing offset and flexo production lines, handling an extensive range of substrates.