Under the theme “Success with automation”, the event will take place across two halls at Messe Luzern in Lucerne, Switzerland from 25-28 February, with around 100 exhibitors in attendance, a slight increase on 2017.

Continuous workflow automation will be one of the focal points of the show, which is expected to attract nearly 6,000 visitors – including transactional printers, direct mailers, book manufacturers and commercial printers.

Hunkeler, the manufacturer organising and heading up the event, said efficient new production lines must minimise or eliminate manual interventions to save costs and increase margins, with the “white paper in, finished product out” business model depending on advanced automation.

Accordingly, at the show Hunkeler will demonstrate the latest automation features available for its Generation 8 production system platform.

These include new modules for processing paper web widths of up to 571.5mm with industrial-duty design; dynamic finishing for perforation, punching, folding, chip-out, cutting and stacking; and the ability to process a broad range of substrates, from offset and coated papers to lightweight and heavyweight papers.

Hunkeler head of marketing communications Philipp Fritschi said: “Our new Generation 8 machines have a completely different control platform inside, which is faster and more flexible.

“This kind of update makes it possible to produce ‘book of one’ on the fly, without any manual changes. It’s now more of a production line than it was before.”

Ricoh, meanwhile, will use the show to host the worldwide public debut of its Ricoh Pro VC70000 continuous feed inkjet press, launched earlier this year. It will highlight the 12,000sph machine’s patent pending dryer technology, designed for greater ink coverage and to eliminate cockling.

“I think the key success of Innovationdays is that we are very focused on high-volume digital printing and nothing more,” said Fritschi.

“Inkjet technology is really interesting now, it’s fast and the quality is good. This sort of machine can also be used for commercial print applications and has high flexibility compared to offset printing machines – you can produce brochures in the morning, books in the afternoon and mailings at night.”

Entry to the event is free of charge. To register, visit: innovationdays.com.