Thrive with Five: Meet the Xerox iGen 5 Press

Chances are good that, over the past several years, your business has been impacted in some way by the changing environment around you. Your customers are demanding quicker turnarounds, timelier customer service, more personalization and greater quality…just to name a few.
Take run lengths, for instance. Gone are the days of producing thousands of prints for your clients. Today, you’re being asked to deliver smaller runs of maybe 300 or even 50 prints. As a result, staying profitable now means processing 200 jobs a day rather than the 20 you once had done.

The Next in a Long Line of Innovation

Fortunately, all of these requirements play to the strengths of digital print technology. The recent launch of the Xerox® iGen® 5 Press further builds upon the widely-acclaimed iGen technology, whose ground-breaking debut in 2002 launched a digital color revolution, transforming the industry in the process. Since then, thousands of iGen presses have been adopted world-wide, helping to create billions of high-quality, high-margin pages for its users.
So how does the industry’s most productive, profitable digital production platform get even better? With a new architecture including a fifth color option, continued emphasis on press uptime, and the ability to move between multiple speed choices. Let’s take a closer look.Extended-Gamut-iGen-5

Five Colors for Gamut Extension

The iGen® 5, with its optional fifth color unit, allows users to load orange, green or blue as a supplement to CMYK, helping to match a larger gamut of Pantone colors or unknown spot colors. This enables you to easily hit distinctive brand colors, keeping color-critical jobs on your digital press without the inefficiencies of moving shorter runs to offset. As a result, you can take on more work from customers than ever before!
*Editor’s Note: Watch a brief video overview of the Xerox iGen® 5 Press.

Managing 4 or 5 Color Jobs

Have a color-critical job and want to know whether to use a 5-color workflow, or simply stick with CMYK? By visiting www.xerox.com/gamut, finding out is as easy as entering the PANTONE Gamut-Extension-Toolcode into the online tool. This immediately displays just how accurate that PANTONE can be matched by using a fifth color and which color should be used. This tool will also advise you if the PANTONE color can be accurately matched using a CMYK process.

Highly Configurable Platform

Built on a new architecture and a single, configurable platform, the iGen® 5 offers you the flexibility to choose the configurations best suited for your business today, and easily upgrade as your needs evolve. This modularity lets you choose between different speed points, which includes 150, 120 and 90* image per minute models, as well as either 4 or 5 color print stations – all while taking advantage of the 2,400 x 2,400 dpi imaging system. And whether in 5-color mode or 4-color mode, you can expect the system to run at the same speed.
*Editor’s Note: The iGen® 5 90 Press is available in CMYK-only

How would you Like to Have 25% More Production Time?

How much time do you currently spend reprinting errors, controlling quality, setting up jobs, jams, and waiting for service? Likely more than you need to.iGen5-Productivity
With the iGen® 5, the amount time you spend on all of those non-value add activities is less thanks in large part to innovations that automate what previously were manual tasks. This includes standard features such as the Color Maintenance Tool driven by an Inline Spectrophotometer (automates color management and system profiling), Auto Density Control (real-time streak detection that corrects and eliminates streaks before they occur) and Auto Carrier Dispense (eliminates operator subjectivity and removes maintenance time). Combined, these features help the iGen® 5 maintain its industry-leading 85% uptime and press availability…25% higher than competitive devices!
So instead of manipulating color to match a proof or sending the file back to pre-press, you are printing and selling high-value color jobs. Gone are the days of trying multiple times to achieve the color you want; now you are delivering consistent color, job after job and day after day.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH8I-6KGzAE&list=PLioPSVdbzdpZHN7MyCsEnX76Y18cS-34X&index=104[/youtube]

You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers!

1. Why were orange, green and blue chosen for the fifth color?
These colors were chosen to help you match more of the corporate colors for Fortune-500 companies and the top-100 brands in the digital marketplace, many of whom have brand-critical colors that fall within this color gamut.
2. How much time is required to swap between orange, green or blue in the fifth color housing?
Less than 30 minutes, however, after training and repetition, it is possible to reduce the amount of time to roughly 10 minutes.
3. What is required when switching between gamut-extending colors?
This process of switching between gamut-extending colors requires an innovative cart and storage rack system. Users must pull out the developer housing, placing it onto a cart into storage rack. The storage rack is designed to accommodate multiple developer housing, helping to save space on the production floor.
4. Can my existing Xerox iGen be upgraded to an iGen® 5?
Unfortunately not. Modifications to the frame were required in order to accommodate the fifth color station, making an upgrade from a previous model iGen® not possible.
5. Once purchasing a Xerox iGen® 5, can it be upgraded to a different configuration?
Yes, for users who have an iGen® 5, there is flexibility in adding a fifth printing station and/or modifying speed. However, the iGen® 5 90 Press is available as CMYK-only
6. In the future, will the fifth color housing be used for metallic inks or other specialty inks?
At the present time, there are no specific plans to extend the usage of the fifth station. That being said, a large investment was made to modify the frame and bring the 5th station to market. To maximizie that investment, additional uses of the 5th station seem likely and the intent would be to enable users that invest in the 5th color option today to be able to take advantage of any future 5th station capabilities.
7. Does the iGen® 5 come with a choice of inks?
Yes, users can select between Standard Dry Ink (provides vivid images that are ideal for catalogues, direct mail and a range of retail applications) or Matte Dry Ink (emulates offset and eliminates gloss differential in photo-rich applications). However, fifth-color options are available as Matte Dry Ink only.
8. How are gamut extension dry inks purchased?
Gamut extension dry inks are sold separately and can be purchased by visiting our Xerox iGen 5 supplies page.

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