Those who’ve wondered where the 2013 marriage of xerographic cut-sheet leader Xerox and continuous-feed inkjet specialist Impika would lead got the strongest indication yet during drupa Media Week announcements on March 1 in Dusseldorf, Germany. There, Xerox introduced two new inkjet presses: the company’s first cut-sheet inkjet press, the Xerox^® Brenva™ HD Production Inkjet Press, and a new continuous feed inkjet platform, the Xerox^® Trivor™ 2400 Inkjet Press.
Both presses represent technological breakthroughs in their respective markets, drawing upon the rich heritages of the two companies. For the Xerox Brenva HD Production Inkjet Press, that includes combining the economics and productivity associated with inkjet printing with the flexibilities of a cut sheet platform. For the Xerox Trivor 2400 Inkjet Press, it’s about delivering a next-generation inkjet platform that provides incredible scalability, flexibility and enhanced productivity.

Together, these technologies combine to make inkjet more accessible and affordable for print providers everywhere. That’s important because color inkjet print is expected to account for 57 percent of the total production digital color volume by 2019¹, according to InfoTrends.
And both presses target the applications that are providing today’s best growth opportunities: transactional documents, direct mail, and books and manuals – opening new opportunities for many print providers who lack the capital and print volumes to justify acquiring the high-end inkjet presses that have long been the market’s nearly exclusive options.

The Cut-Sheet Inkjet Revolution

The new Brenva press is the first in a series of planned Xerox cut-sheet production inkjet presses that combine the low running costs of inkjet with the substrate versatility, quality, and small footprint of cut sheet. With a suggested list price of $649,000 USD for the base configuration, entering the inkjet market or adding redundancy is now a more realistic option for many providers.

Filling an unmet market need

Brenva targets the so-called “Zone of Disruption,” the largely un-served space that sits between high-volume cut-sheet xerographic presses and low-end inkjet presses. The space is ripe for disruption because many of its applications are produced by running color offset shells through monochrome toner-based cut-sheet printers—a more expensive and less efficient process than printing in a single pass using only white paper on a color inkjet press.

Built on a foundation of proven technologies

Brenva may feature a familiar looking package – using the same frame as our flagship cut-sheet iGen family – and is built using many best-in-breed Xerox components, but don’t let that fool you. This platform pushes our technologies to the next level.
Incorporated from trusted technologies includes the production stacker from the Nuvera family and many of the same paper-handling systems that have helped deliver the iGen’s leadership reliability and press availability for more than a decade. And much like the iGen, Brenva offers best-in-class automation and optimal productivity with features such as an inline spectrophotometer to assist with calibration and automated profiling.
Inside the press is a newly designed print engine built with the latest inkjet componentry by the Xerox—and former Impika—engineering team in Aubagne, France to provide closed-loop controls and run-time corrections throughout the print run. Among its advanced capabilities:

• Kyocera print heads, capable of high-speed printing at a maximum of over 100 million drops per second.
• Object-oriented color management to distinguish text, graphics, and images and optimize each accordingly for image quality and ink drop size, to better control ink costs.
• K-only mode for cost effective monochrome printing, making it the first press offering leadership price points for both business color and black-and-white applications.

The versatility of cut sheet

This press, which prints at speeds as fast as 197 A4 images per minute, is designed to offer a set of advantages that are found today in our other inkjet products, but with the flexibilities that are traditionally found on a cut sheet platform.
As an example, Brenva will thrive in environments where jobs dictate a range of substrates, a requirement that typically wouldn’t be conducive for traditional production inkjet technologies as substrate changeovers are time consuming and can constrain productivity.
With that in mind, Brenva provides as many as eight paper stock pick points, accommodating for as many as 20,000 sheets of plain-paper and inkjet treated stocks with weights ranging from 60 to 220 gsm and sizes up to 14.33×20.5 inches (364mm x 520.7mm).

A familiar supporting cast

The system’s front-end controller is the familiar Xerox FreeFlow Print Server, which is common to all of Xerox’s leading cut-sheet presses. And the back-end borrows its finishing connectivity from the proven Xerox Nuvera line. The press’ base configuration includes the Xerox^® Production Stacker, which stacks and produces signature booklets inline. At launch, the inline CP Bourg BDFNx booklet maker also is available to produce booklets at the press’ rated speed. Additional finishing options will continue to be rolled out.

Heritage of innovation carries on

Breakthrough advancements often draw comparisons to preceding technologies. Some will undoubtedly refer to Brenva as the “Inkjet iGen,” much as the first iGen was nicknamed, the “Color DocuTech,” and much as the original DocuTech, introduced more than 25 years ago, was built with the frame and proven paper handling of the then market leading 5090 copier.
While designed to serve a vastly different market segment than iGen, it is clear with Brenva that the evolution of innovation carries on.
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A Press That Grows With Your Business

Breakthroughs in the inkjet space don’t stop with a new cut sheet platform. We are also bringing exciting new innovations to market in the continuous feed inkjet space with the Xerox Trivor 2400 Inkjet Press.

Flexible for today, scalable for tomorrow

As the heir-apparent to the Xerox Impika Compact, Trivor includes new levels of flexibility, not only to tailor the press for specific applications, but also for accommodating future advancements as well. The new inkjet press can be upgraded in the field for print speed and volume capacity, while a new transport base will enable expanded substrate capabilities to capture a wider range of applications. This gives our customers the security of knowing that as their business grows, so, too, can their inkjet investment.

Keeping pace with evolving customer demands

And the 20-inch Trivor brings some powerful capabilities to the shop floor. Its color print speeds of 551 feet/168 meters per minute (656 feet/200 meters per minute monochrome) provide a 30 percent productivity boost over the entry-level Impika Compact model it replaces. And it applies leadership automation from other Xerox platforms, including:

• Missing jet detection and correction from the CiPress family, to improve image quality.
• Clear pixel technology, from the Rialto, to keep nozzles healthy.
• Inline density optimization to ensure color uniformity across the web, from the IJP 2000.

To match the press’s flexibility and meet the demands of its full range of applications, we worked with EFI to develop a brand new print server/controller. The new Xerox IJ Print Server powered by Fiery actually comprises multiple RIPs, enabling print providers to scale the power they need for various applications. Collectively, these RIPs handle the range of data streams that are common for among production inkjet focused applications, while enabling simple integration, comprehensive color management and seamless integration with customers’ workflows.

Let the Work Flow

Both new presses will be on display at the Xerox stand at drupa 2016, Hall 8B, Messe Dusseldorf. Brenva order taking for Canada, Europe and Developing Markets will begin May 31 for shipments beginning July 1. United States order taking will begin in the fall to coincide with Graph Expo. Availability for Xerox Trivor will be announced at drupa.
Many other Xerox announcements are planned, including a number of workflow solutions offering increased automation in support of end-to-end solutions, presented at a stand themed, “Let the work flow.” To stay up-to-date on all the latest Xerox drupa news, be sure to visit www.xerox.com/drupa.
It is clear that those plans include taking a leadership role in the next phase of the inkjet printing revolution.
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¹ Source: Global Production Printing & Copying Market Forecast: 2014-2019, InfoTrends