Dina Color Lab has installed India’s (as well as Southeast Asia’s) 1st AccurioJet KM-1 from Konica Minolta. The installation underlines a new growth path for the Inkjet Digital Printing landscape of the region.
In a move hinting at a significant transformation in the country’s print and printing industry, global advanced imaging & networking provider – Konica Minolta Business Solutions, has completed the first-ever India installation of its state-of-the-art inkjet press, AccurioJet KM-1 at Dina Color Labs in Chennai; which also marks the first AccurioJet KM-1 installation in the entire Southeast Asia region.
The unveiling of the newly-installed Konica Minolta AccurioJet KM-1 took place at the Launch Event at Dina Color Labs on 31 May 2018 which was attended by several printing businesses from the region, as well as key leaders from the senior management team at Konica Minolta India.
Speaking on the installation, Mr Daisuke Mori, Managing Director – Konica Minolta India, said, “India, as a nation, has been moving at an accelerated pace towards its vision of becoming a digital-first economy, and the print and printing industry needs to evolve in step with the fast-changing market dynamics. At Konica Minolta, we are committed to empowering our valued clients with the solutions they need to capitalise on the massive business opportunities this shift will enable. The first India installation of AccurioJet KM-1 at Dina Color Labs underlines that commitment.”
“We are confident that our latest hi-tech solution will help Dina Color Labs to effectively cater to new-age printing requirements in the market and undertake print jobs which were near impossible to accomplish through traditional printing technologies. Digital is the future of printing and, by installing AccurioJet KM-1, Dina Color Labs has taken a big step towards readying preparing itself for the new, digitally-driven paradigm,” added Mr Mori.
KM-1 – A win-win situation for both Dina Color Lab and customers
Dina Color Lab has many firsts to their credit. The latest KM-1 too complements the tradition. “Every machine that we have installed over the years has been a path breaking and trend setting first installation,” says Mr. Dinakaran, MD, Dina Color Lab. The KM-1 is one such first installation in India and South East Asia region by the company.
Dina Colour lab established in 1991 as a partnership firm dealing in photographic goods. With an impressive growth graph Dina expanded to multisphere organisation and currently operating as a group of companies with turnover of 200 crores along with its sister concerns. Having headquarters at Chennai, Dina has 7 branches mostly in southern part of India. Expanding their periphery of business Dina is presently into photographic supplies, FMCG distribution of Indian as well as Indus International brands, sale of cameras and accessories, printing supplies, agricultural product, chain of restaurants and many more.
Dinakaran’s excitement regarding his latest installation is pretty evident: “Over time, we have witnessed a growing demand for short-run, print-on-demand UV printing, but there wasn’t any solution which catered to this specific requirement. Coming equipped with unique UV inkjet technology, Konica Minolta AccurioJet KM-1 addresses this major need-gap. We are delighted with this installation, as it will not only help us optimise our current printing operations, but also enable us to explore various new printing applications to stay ahead of the competitive curve.”
According to him, KM-1 has clear advantages for their customers. “KM-1 serves the business of four of our divisions – first the photo segment. We can now print photos on bigger sheets of size 18 x 24 – for non tearable and 20 x 30 – for wedding albums. Thus our customers can get bigger prints at lesser costs and our productivity increases by 50%. Thus it’s a win-win situation for both of us. The photographer who prints a wedding album can now deliver a better quality, bigger size album to the end user at a better margin. For the end customer, due to the high quality of prints, they can retain these precious moments in their life for more than 40 years,” adds Dinakaran.
“For commercial printers, the standard size available till now is 13 x 19. This is the maximum size available in digital print. Here comes the difference of printing on B2 Plus size with KM-1, which offers 50% bigger size prints. For Book printing, it is normally on single colour or mono print and not colour prints. With KM-1 we can print colour books on demand. For Offset, KM-1 is the only option for printing short run jobs of even 200 prints. Printers can just wait, get their jobs printed and take instant delivery, which is not possible with Offset. This machine can handle up to 100 such jobs per day,” he continues.
In Digital, Dina prints around 10 to 12 lakh sheets per month and in Photo it prints approximately 7 lakhs sheets per month. “With KM-1 our print output in terms of square meter and colour printing output will increase, thereby increase our turnover as well,” foresees Dinakaran.
The cutting-edge AccurioJet KM-1 technology – Another first in Dina’s tradition of acquiring firsts
With respect to the print size, media and compatibility, Konica Minolta’s cutting-edge AccurioJet KM-1 UV Inkjet press offers a far better business proposition than other competitive machines, according to Mr. Ashok Sethi of Konica Minolta. The solution comes with a B2+ sheet-fed inkjet press, and is equipped with the company’s patented UV inkjet technology. It can print a staggering 3,000 sheets per hour in simplex mode and 1,500 sheets per hour in duplex mode, while also eliminating the need to use special digital stocks or expensive coatings. It can handle oversized B2+ sheets of up to 585x750mm, with piezo shear technology fitted in pairs to offer true 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolution. Konica Minolta has also provided its Web to Print solution to Dina Colour lab to ensure 24X7 availability to its customers through an additional communication channel.
AccurioJet KM-1 efficiently caters to latest production demands and can easily handle quality jobs on a wide range of substrates, enabling unprecedented image production quality and capability to print on a host of media. It is consistent in terms of paper feeding, registration, image quality, and repeatability through excellent front-to-back registration accuracy, enabled by a gripper-to-gripper Offset technology. Its proprietary KM controller for the servers also enables excellent ripping quality at par with the machine’s rated speed.
Dinakaran is all praises for Konica Minolta machines: “In our business, we have invested heavily in Konica Minolta machines. With respect to KM-1, the feature that attracted us most was its print size. This bigger size prints allow better margins for us as well as our customers and resellers of the printed products. The second aspect was Konica Minolta’s Advance UV Inkjet Technology, which enables faster, high quality printed outputs, not only for photo prints but for all applications like packaging etc. No other machine offers UV Inkjet technology!”
“The Digital Print Market is growing by 15 to 20% year on year. Digital print technology in India is improving day by day; it depends on whom you associate with. If you are with Konica Minolta, then you grow!” he emphasises.
Its unique value proposition, allows AccurioJet KM-1 to cater to the specific requirements of multiple commercial print and packaging applications. Besides, it also eradicates the requirement of pre/post printing processes to substantially reduce turnaround times and operational expenditures for printing business. Consequently, the innovative solution has already garnered significant appreciation across the globe.
Konica Minolta has drawn up plans to achieve double digit growth in its digital industrial printing business unit in India. With a current market share of 3 to 4 percent in the country, the plan is to double the share this fiscal. Whereas, the target by 2020 is set at 10 percent. Along with the flagship AccurioJet KM-1, the focus for Konica will be its other top models like MGI Jetvarnish 3D and 4-colour label printers.
Now equipped with innovative capabilities of KM-1, Dina Color Lab is planning to soon launch a Franchise Model across the state of Tamil Nadu; it will begin with district level franchise for photo jobs. Another pricing model includes collecting jobs, getting them accomplished by the same day and getting it delivered by next day at customers’ door. The pricing will be almost similar to existing commercial digital print pricing and would be of great interest to customers. Similarly, costing for colour book printing too is going to be revolutionised with attractive pricing enabled by KM-1 at Dina. It will be able to offer a better pricing option than existing popular click charge models. Moreover, Dina is also providing machines to corporates on a rental basis.
As for quality, the Inkjet UV inks are longer lasting that other technologies like toner prints. Apart from better fade resistence, the quality of output from KM-1 is much better than toner prints and as a result, Dinakaran seems very impressed from both the matte as well as glossy finishes of his photo prints. “Even the first print of a job is sellable which keeps the wastage to a bare minimum,” concludes Dinakaran with a winning smile.
