RR Donnelley has been ahead of the curve in all aspects of digital printing. In fact, around the world, it has more than 1,000 digital imaging devices in operation. It took the decision to tackle the fact that 25% of printed books never get to consumers and are pulped instead.

Ronnie Sarker, senior vice president of the Digital Solutions Group at RR Donnelley, expanded upon both this and the company’s wider inkjet printing strategy at this year’s Ipex. He said the aim was to develop its own inkjet printing press, as it did not find a suitable press being offered by any of the industry’s suppliers.

That press emerged in 2008 in the form of the ProteusJet,  a 122m per minute four-colour press with an operational resolution of 1,200x600dpi. It can also run as a two-colour press at a speed of 244m per minute and boasts inline finishing that was developed with Muller Martini.

Speed and colour
In addition to the ProteusJet press, RR Donnelley has also developed the ProteusJet Modular configuration, where inkjet imaging units are placed inline on web offset and flexo presses. The speed of the inline units ranges from 122m per minute in four-colour up to 366m per minute in monochrome.

Currently, RR Donnelley has eight ProteusJet presses installed in the transactional and direct mail markets and it is looking to move the press into book printing, with the number of ProteusJet installations expected to double by the end of this year.

Sarker said that the digital front-end was very important and that it should be specific to the required market. Links to customers are also important, with portals for online approvals. In this, RR Donnelley has developed its own CustomPoint portal for print ordering and file submissions.

Sarker indicated that web-based inkjet differs from sheetfed toner digital presses in that makereadies have to be allowed for, as well as time for making printhead and web changes.

One of the key issues of concern was inks and substrates. Initially, ProteusJet installations used dye-based inks, but with the move to book printing it was found that these inks did not produce good enough quality and there was a switch to pigment-based ink.

Sarker indicated that buying ink directly from the ink suppliers, rather than through the press supplier, was of benefit to their business model, as was using standard substrates. He added that RR Donnelley wanted to have a similar environment to offset printing where they could buy consumables from multiple suppliers. For the future, however, he said that there was a need for specific coated and uncoated inkjet papers at comparable prices to offset papers.

RR Donnelley has developed a powerful production system that is at least comparable to the inkjet presses available from the industry’s suppliers. The fact that it can run in two-colour mode at double the four-colour speed is something not available on other inkjet presses. The ProteusJet Modular configuration more than matches the configurations in the hybrid area from other suppliers.

The number of installations that the company has made, and its plans for the future, demonstrates the huge level of technical excellence available within RR Donnelley.

What will be interesting to see is what the future of ProteusJet will be as suppliers bring out the next generation of inkjet presses. Will RR Donnelley bring out ProteusJet II or will it buy future presses from the industry suppliers? Also, what will be the future process in the industry for inks and substrates? Will RR Donnelley’s preferred business model become available for all printers, or is this just something for organisations with their high level of technical expertise? The answers to these questions will no doubt have a wider effect on the industry as a whole.