At the time of going to press Xerox had still not gone public with the UK price for its DocuColor 5000 Digital Press, launched at the end of May. But you can guess at a price tag of around £140,000 for the machine which is geared to the 50 page-per-minute performance range.

The DocuColor 5000 Digital Press

Look slightly higher up the evolutionary scale and you’ll come to the iGen3 90 page-per-minute machine, launched at IPEX the month before the DocuColor 5000, and as a scaled down version of the 100ppm and 110ppm versions, priced to be within the sights of the ambitious copy shop entrepreneur.

Both machines represent a hefty investment for the high street printer, but are they worth finding the money?

In response, Kevin O’Donnell, UK marketing manager for Xerox DocuColor, says: “How long is a piece of string? It is difficult to give a figure on the ROI for a company with 100% certainty. It is all down to the level of overheads, their throughput, efficiency and a whole host of other factors. What I can say with certitude, is that I am confident the DocuColor 5000 and the new iGen3 90ppm, offer opportunities for the copyshop market to gain new profit based applications by providing best of breed productive technologies. The presses can print anything thrown at them, from marketing materials, direct mail, report and accounts, to business cards and wedding invitations. They can run a range of stocks at high speed, high quality, and high performance, without pausing to have to make a cup of tea.”

The iGen 3 90ppm newcomer

In an attempt to measure O’Donnell’s proverbial piece of string and get some way in helping us and Xerox better understand and develop a workable business model for its printers, Xerox has developed a Profit Accelerator programme, a tool of which is Profit Quick, a financial modelling tool.

A Business Planner Module allows you to develop a five-year customised profit and cash flow analysis using Xerox equipment, learn which applications are most profitable, determine the page volumes needed to become cash flow profitable and shows the impact of quick turnaround and variable pricing premiums. The Workflow Cost Estimation and Comparison Module also allows you to easily determine digital versus offset printing cost-and-profit comparisons for any job run length.

In addition, through the programme Xerox promises to provide aid and assistance in selling and promoting the benefits of digital print. Here, Xerox personnel will come in and demonstrate the range of applications that are possible on a press, the range of media available, and provide you with training and sales and marketing resources.

And don’t forget Xerox’s Premier Partner network, a conglomerate of the best and most able Xerox customers across the world who meet to share ideas, tips, hints and processes as well as benefiting from working together to print and distribute jobs across the globe. Some UK quick printers have already made the grade, notably Call Print Services and Copyprint in London.

The DocuColor 5000 Digital Press and iGen 90 themselves are ideally designed to serve the mid-range production market with a requirement for more advanced printing features than a standard printing press. The DC5000 is specifically designed for print providers that average 30,000 to 150,000 impressions per month. It features a 2,400 x 2,400 dpi print resolution and state-of-the-art laser technology.

Rather than a typical two-beam laser, it comes equipped with a 32-beam laser, allowing the press to scan more data faster and at a higher resolution. It also offers tighter registration and a wider choice of colour management capabilities than light production machines now on the market.

The range of applications is impressive – recommendations include brochures, posters and customised direct mail pieces, over and above the standard items that may be requested through the print shop. What is more, the press can handle a wide range of substrates, on heavyweight, oversized and coated papers, without impacting on the speed of production, an important factor when considering the overall productivity of a press.

Jim Hamilton, a director of the independent research house InfoTrends On Demand Printing and Publishing Service in the US, says: “The productivity and price of the new DocuColor 5000 opens up new opportunities in the mid-productivity segment and extends Xerox’s price leadership. It offers the image resolution, broad substrate support and robustness of the higher-end DocuColor products at a price point that will make it attractive to a wide range of production sites.”

By comparison, the Xerox iGen3 90 Digital Production Press is based on the successful Xerox iGen3 platform, which since its launch in 2002 has produced more than three billion pages worldwide for customers – including jobs like full-colour personalised marketing materials, direct-mail pieces and short-run books. But the important fact to bear in mind is that it’s 20 per cent cheaper than the iGen3 110.

“We’ve listened to customers and given them a product line that is the right fit between the Xerox DocuColor range and the Xerox iGen3 110,” says Anoush Gordon, director and general manager of the production group, Xerox UK. “The iGen3 90 will bring customers a more affordable choice designed to meet their specific page volume needs, surpass competitive products and allow them to generate more profits.”

The iGen3 90 accommodates paper weights from 60gsm to 350gsm, and sizes from 178 x 178mm to 364 x 571mm. That means a wide range of applications, such as book covers, postcards and posters can be produced. Productivity advances outpace current competitive marketplace offerings, utilising two paper trays so users can reload paper whilst running and also use a variety of substrates. The iGen3 90 also supports a broad range of in-line finishing devices, such as signature booklet making and perfect binding.

Some of the applications run on the iGen3 are highly sophisticated. Visitors to Ipex saw an application from Dutch company Venspro called Greetz, where users could design and send a free card with an online personalised greeting. Venspro generates more than 80,000 different orders each month, all printed on the Xerox iGen3 press.

“The scale of applications that can be produced on an iGen3 is enormous. It is almost just limited by the scale of your imagination. We are still discovering client applications that impress us with their novelty and diversity. This is all made possible with digital printing and the capabilities of the DC5000 and the iGen3 90,” said Gordon.

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