Inkjet & Digital Printing
Konica Minolta on track to dazzle at drupa 2008
Friday 30. May 2008 - 2008 is set to be a good year for Konica Minolta. The company is marking the return of drupa - the flagship trade fair for the print media industry held every four years in Düsseldorf - under the slogan "Scale up". And scaling up is exactly what they will be doing: Konica Minolta will be a stronger presence than ever before, enhancing its reputation as a provider of high-end printers and innovative accompanying workflow solutions - such as the new Printgroove POD Suite. Appearing at drupa for the second time, the company is also set to offer a dynamic response to the growing web-to-print trend.
At drupa 2008, the “Scale up” theme will show just how far Konica Minolta has come in the field of production printing since making its debut at the trade fair four years ago. The mere fact that the Konica Minolta stand will be four times as large, at around 1,000 square metres, is a testament to its confident approach. Already an international market leader for full-colour multifunctional products (MFP), it has made great strides in production printing in recent years. And it will use drupa to present a comprehensive portfolio of monochrome and colour printing systems for professional users. Also on show will be in-house workflow solutions such as Printgroove POD Suite. These have been designed to work in tandem with Konica Minolta systems, improving efficiency and cutting costs. After all it is the customers – and in particular print service providers and graphic arts companies – who should be reaping the benefits of the “Scale up” concept.
“At this year’s drupa, we have set ourselves a key objective of strengthening the position of Konica Minolta as a professional partner to the graphic arts industry and major print service providers”, says Heike Börsch, head of Production Printing at Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe. “Printing systems form just one of the keys to success. Making workflows efficient is equally important.”
There’s sure to be a lot of buzz surrounding these workflow solutions at drupa: they control and automate internal workflows, for instance allocating individual print jobs to the appropriate printing system or taking online orders. The importance of these functions is underlined by the results of a recent InfoTrends survey from September 2007. According to estimations given by print service providers, web-to-print volumes are set to increase by a staggering 264 per cent by 2010.
Printgroove POD Suite: at the cutting edge of workflow solutions
Konica Minolta’s answer to this development is the Printgroove POD Suite. Developed by its in-house team, the four-module solution provides standardised, user-friendly mapping of the entire workflow. It covers the whole printing process from job submission and shipping to invoice generation, and provides a seamless link between the various print systems. POD Queue, the first Printgroove module, manages incoming print jobs and allocates them to the available printing system. At the same time, it monitors a systems status in terms of finishing equipment and supplies. It also allows potential bottlenecks to be identified and neutralised at an early stage. The second module is POD Serve, an online store front available at any time of day, while POD Guide is used to manage and monitor the entire system. The fourth and latest module, Printgroove POD Ready, is the easy-to-use make-readysolution: Apart from editing of chapters, pages and individual documents it also integrates impositioning. POD Ready also allows using PrePress programmes that are already available.
“The Printgroove POD Suite with its quartet of modules is highly integrated with the hardware, which means we can offer customers optimal protection on their investment”, declares Heike Börsch. “The excellence of our Printgroove solution has even been rewarded with a ‘BERTLs BEST Award for Innovation’.”
Visitors to drupa can see how Printgroove and other new Konica Minolta products can enable their business to “Scale up” at the manufacturer’s prominent stand in hall 9 (stand A26). The trade fair takes place at Düsseldorf Exhibition Centre from 29 May to 11 June 2008.