Innovate Magazine - Spring 2008 - (Page 33)

120 Digital Production System. “EA,” for Emulsion Aggregation Toner, is Xerox’s patented chemically grown toner, with very small particles for a smooth, consistent matte ﬁnish and sharper details than traditional toner. It also improves machine reliability. At the University of Chicago, Edwards Brothers ran an imagequality test, gathering 15 experts and assembling graphicsand halftone-heavy books produced on about half a dozen anonymous digital devices to compare with offset. “We all pointed to the same one as being the closest to offset quality,” says John J. Edwards, Chief Executive Ofﬁcer and President, Edwards Brothers: the Xerox Nuvera output. By the end of September, Edwards had replaced more than half of its monochrome cut-sheet digital printers with Nuvera EA Toner models, including four at customer locations and two at its own. “The Nuvera printers give us more ﬂexibility to use our assets better because we can now send books to offset or digital presses to produce a commercially acceptable book,” Edwards says. “That’s what we like.” Opening New Markets Mercury Print completed a transition to Xerox Nuvera printers earlier this year. Now, moving runs between offset and digital to meet shifting demand is common practice, according to Christian Schamberger, Vice President of Operations, Mercury Print Book Division. “Our customers like a vendor who can do both offset and digital in-house and maintain similar quality when moving back and forth,” he says. The transition began in 2004, when Mercury Print was a beta test site for the ﬁrst Nuvera systems. “With the more traditional digital output, we were constantly being pressed on price,” he says. “The Nuvera quality enabled us to go after a different market, to compete with offset and ﬁll a void for short-run work that needed high-quality halftones. With web offset, you need a minimum run of 1,000 to get those halftones.” The quality so impressed Mercury customer Harcourt Education that it provided an entrée to then-parent company, Reed Elsevier. Soon Mercury was producing Elsevier science, technology, and medicine publications that need the highest quality reproductions of detailed images such as x-rays and ultrasounds. The Nuvera capability to print on 12-inch by 18inch coated sheets also ﬁt the segment’s needs for economical multi-up production in various formats. Today, Mercury has four Xerox Nuvera 120 Production Systems and a Xerox Nuvera 288 Digital Perfecting System, a tandem system that uses EA Toner and provides high-productivity and reduced labor requirements, Schamberger says. Health, science, and technology now accounts for 25 percent of Book Division volume. And two-thirds of its black-and-white page volume couldn’t be done with anything short of Nuvera quality, adds Schamberger. “One clear breakthrough for us has been Nuvera technology, which permits us to print very high-resolution biological and medical subjects on lightweight, glosscoated, text papers, something we had been unable to do in the past.” —Tad Parker, President, Odyssey Press Inc. A “Big Upside” Ultra-short-run book manufacturer Odyssey produces about 80 percent of its books digitally and acquired a dual-engine Xerox Nuvera 288 in April. “One clear breakthrough for us has been Nuvera technology, which permits us to print very high-resolution biological and medical subjects on lightweight, gloss-coated, text papers, something we had been unable to do in the past,” says Tad Parker, President, Odyssey Press Inc. “And the new EA toner technology is superior to the old toners. It lays ﬂat on the paper more like an offset product. The result is a much ﬂatter book or journal.” With the Nuvera 288, the company has expanded its work in the science, technology, and medical reprint market, Parker says. Xerox FreeFlow Process Manager also plays a role, automating the workﬂow to cut a 10- to 12-hour manual pre-ﬂight and ﬁle-preparation process to about 45 minutes, he said. Odyssey’s greatest growth has been with university presses, which, like science, technology, and medical books, account for about 30 percent of the ﬁrm’s business. To further build that business, Odyssey is conducting tests with clients like the University of California Press and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles to demonstrate that the Nuvera system can deliver museum-quality reproduction work. “We ﬁnd publishers are looking for more ﬂexible ways to reproduce books in small quantities,” Parker concludes. “Nuvera technology has opened a number of doors that were previously closed, both in the ﬁdelity of reproduction and the running of lighter weight papers. We see a big upside moving forward.” John Conley is the Vice President of the Book Publishing Business of the Worldwide Graphic Communications Industry, Xerox Corporation. He can be reached at john.conley@xerox.com. Innovate Spring 08 33

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Innovate Magazine - Spring 2008

Innovate - Spring 2008 Table of Contents 10 Tips for Successful Open Houses The TransPromo Path Escape the Complexity Putting a Price on Value A Welcome Boost to Hospitality Team Approach Earns Accolades Bound Together New Highs in Image Quality Transforming the Business of Processing Photos Predictive Maintenance Making the Right Choice Diving into Digital Book Production Doing More With Less Distributed Document Creation

Innovate Magazine - Spring 2008

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