In an exclusive media tour of its Epicenter at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, Fuji Xerox showed off several upcoming releases, including the iGen4 Press, the 700 Digital Color Press, the DocuColor 5000AP Digital Press, and the DocuColor 1257GA Digital Press, as well as the updated 4127 Copier/Printer.

With the press set for an official release next month and installations set to commence in January, the iGen4 features more automation than its predecessor and approximately 400 changes to the engine. The three main changes include a full-width sensor which automatically detects and corrects density variations and streaks; a carrier hopper which eliminates the need to manually replace developer; and inline spectrophotometer which calibrates the engine for color accuracy automatically.

Fuji Xerox believes that the 700 Digital Color Press has the potential to become the company’s highest selling commercial product. The 700 has the ability to run coated stocks in addition to the custom profile capability that can be used to optimize the settings for certain stocks. There are also updates to its workflow software suite, FreeFlow, which now includes Express to Print, a very simple prepress program, geared towards entry-level digital print providers. It automates frequently repeated jobs and runtime job preparation tasks in order to increase productivity.

The arrival of six 25,000 gallon tanks at the Xerox plant in Webster, New York will herald an era of more energy efficient digital printing. It is in preparation for the production of Ultra Low-Melt EA Toner, a breakthrough product that cuts overall power consumption of digital printing devices by 15 to 30%.

The most power-intensive process in printers and multifunction devices is fusing the toner or sealing it on the page, accounting for 50 to 80% of the total power used. With the development of the Ultra Low-Melt EA Toner, scientists at Xerox Research Centre of Canada aimed to save energy by lowering the fusing temperature. The new toner melts as much as 45 degrees Fahrenheit lower temperature than the EA toner now being used in current Xerox products, without compromising image quality or any other performance.

Scientists at Xerox initially developed the EA process and the Ultra Low-Melt EA Toner is their next generation product. Pages printed with EA toner use 40 to 50% less material than those printed with older style toner. In collaboration with colleagues at Fuji Xerox, scientists and engineers at Xerox designed and tested many polymers before discovering polyesters that could be combined with other toner ingredients such as color pigments and wax particles to form the Ultra Low-Melt EA Toner.

Xerox recently asked its North American Graphic Arts Premier Partners, an elite group of customers, questions like, what do production printing providers need to do to sustain and grow their business today and into the future? This survey was designed to measure the key challenges and opportunities facing graphic communication providers.

The survey collected customer views on the economic climate and environment as well as expectations for the industry over the next five to ten years. It is also an attempt by Xerox to listen to its customers and equipping them for success, even during the current climate of economic uncertainty. Xerox aims to provide its customers with a host of offering, including new technologies to workflow solutions and business development tools and services that make them more productive.

The results of the survey show that the biggest challenges facing Xerox’s Premier Partners is establishing new services while keeping current business on track; the current economic climate; and differentiating their business in the market. Almost all responders agree that digital printing has helped their businesses expand into new areas and most recognize that color and digital printing offer the most opportunity to generate revenue.

Western Graphics, one of the largest print providers in the country, turned to the 125 page-per-minute Xerox Enterprise Printing System when they needed to produce hundreds of training manuals quickly. Neighborhood print shop Quik Print needed to produce a proof of a brochure on-demand for a real estate client and used the 110 ppm Xerox 4112 Copier/Printer.

Xerox’s light production printers, the 4112/4127 EPS and 4112/4127 C/P have new finishing options that allow print providers to create money-generating applications like black and white brochures, booklets, calendars and training manuals quickly and easily, with the outstanding image quality. The Xerox 4112/4127 C/P copies, prints and scans, which helped it win the Better Buys for Business Editor’s Choice Award for 2008.

The new in-line finishing capabilities cut production time for quick print shops, educational institutions, healthcare offices, commercial printers, and in-plant operations. Western Graphics Inc. is based in St. Paul, Minnesota and is one of the largest print-on-demand facilities in the country. They regularly deal with time-critical projects for its clients.

Businesses face a great challenge in ensuring that their messages stand out given the tremendous amount of direct mail that arrives in consumers’ mailboxes every day. Personalization is one way to stand out from the rest of the competition. The Maine Office of Tourism recently tested the Xerox 1:1 Lab, a variable print testing ground. It demonstrated that a relevant personalized mailing generated a 24.1% improvement in the response rate over traditional generic or static piece.

The Maine Office of Tourism projected that the personalized mailing also generated 23.4% more revenue from state visitors than the control generic group. The Xerox 1:1 Lab analyzes a customer’s traditional static direct-marketing campaign and compares the results against one that uses personalized, one-to-one messaging based on demographic data.

This helps print providers and their clients develop customized, more relevant direct marketing programs produced with digital printing that draws attention and increases response rates. For the project, the Xerox 1:1 Lab devised a test to compare response rates and business results from two different mailings that were sent to visitors who went to the tourism web site. The Xerox 1:1 Lab started in 2004 and is based at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, which is one of the company’s most advanced research centers in the world for digital printing.