Case Study: Acuity Ultra Roll-fed Printer

Fokina GmbH

Case Study

Leading German PSP highlights the Acuity Ultra’s speed and versatility as being essential to operations, while providing a future-proof solution for the ever-changing market.

Fokina GmbH

Eppingen, Germany

Acuity Ultra

The Acuity Ultra fits in perfectly with our other print equipment here, and has become the heartbeat of our business.

Sven Breiter | Fokina GmbH

Highlights

Products include large format photographic, as well as screen, digital and textile printing
Introduced to the Acuity Ultra Roll-fed printer in 2019 and was impressed with the print quality and speed
The Acuity Ultra was installed in March 2020, following increased customer demand
The investment has provided Fokina with new business opportunities
The roll-fed printer enables Fokina to offer the best quality products at the fairest prices
Delighted with the support provided by Fujifilm throughout the sales and installation process

One of Germany’s leading providers of large format photographic printing, as well as screen, digital and textile printing, Fokina GmbH is a full service provider for a range of sectors, including point of sale, retail, public facilities and exhibition stands. Based in the town of Eppingen, just north of Stuttgart, the company has a proud history dating back more than 30 years. Over this time, Fokina has built up a diverse portfolio of print and production machinery to produce the high quality products it is renowned for. And one installation in particular is helping to drive quality standards even higher – Fujifilm’s superwide 5m Acuity Ultra, which was installed in March 2020.

“Our investments in high-tech machinery, qualified employees and intelligent management systems are paramount to our success as a business,” says Sven Breiter, CEO of Fokina. “Companies from all over Germany, the EU and around the world are supplied with our products, so being highly efficient and putting the customer at the top of our priorities is our motto.”

Fokina’s high quality banners, textiles and wallpapers are some of the company’s most popular products. When management noticed demand increasing in 2019, they knew that adding more printing equipment would be necessary to meet these requirements. It was then that they were introduced to Fujifilm’s Acuity Ultra, and they never looked back. “We first noticed the Acuity Ultra at a trade fair in 2019,” says Saskia Friederich, also a CEO at Fokina. “We were immediately impressed by the print quality and the speed, so we kept in contact with Fujifilm after the event, visiting their Advanced Print Technology Centre in Brussels where we saw the Acuity Ultra first hand. Witnessing its print quality for ourselves reaffirmed our initial view that it was the right machine to add to our already impressive production portfolio.”

For Sven, Saskia and their staff, the Acuity Ultra is fitting in very well at Fokina. “The team working with the Acuity Ultra are very impressed by the quality it produces as well as its high speed,” says Sven. “It’s also incredibly versatile, ink consumption is low and its 5m width has provided us with new business opportunities that we would otherwise not have been able to secure. The combination of the high quality and productivity that it offers is exceptional.”

It’s incredibly versatile, ink consumption is low and its 5m width has provided us with new business opportunities that we would otherwise not have been able to secure.

Sven Breiter, CEO | Fokina GmbH

“We are a family-run business always looking to future-proof ourselves. The print market is highly competitive, and at Fokina we always want to provide the best products at the fairest prices; the Acuity Ultra allows us to do that. It fits in perfectly with our other print equipment here, and has become the heartbeat of our business.”

Sven also has high praise for the Fujifilm team: “The sales and support staff at Fujifilm have been excellent from day one. We’ve always felt in good hands, which is essential when you’re purchasing new equipment. The Acuity Ultra was our first ever purchase from Fujifilm, and we envisage it won’t be the last.”

Acuity Ultra

Find out more about the Acuity Ultra’s ultra-high quality and versatility, and how its low ink consumption can improve ROI

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Acuity Ultra R2

A super-wide printer delivering a phenomenal return on investment

The new blueprint for wide format printing

Combines ultra-high quality, superb productivity and a groundbreaking return on investment in one platform.

The Acuity Ultra R2 wide format printer is a high quality, high productivity super wide platform, available in UV and LED configurations, designed with specialist inks to support the printing of exceptional near-photographic interior graphics and the high speed printing of banners and PVC signage.

Available as

3.2 m and 5 m

options

Up to 8 channels

CMYK+LcLmWW

or double CMYK

Up to

400 m²/hr

productivity

Why Acuity Ultra R2?

Ultra-low ink consumption for low cost-in-use and exceptional ROI

Capable of producing ultra-high quality print at the highest production speeds

Incorporates advanced operator features for ultra-reliable, profitable printing

Media crash detectors to prevent printhead damage

Water-cooled vacuum table

Ink spitting to minimise machine downtime

High quality, high performance printheads

High-performance Uvijet GS and AU inks

Mechanical substrate detector

Auto media thickness and position measurement

The new blueprint for wide format printing

Find out more about why the new Acuity range represents the new blueprint for wide format printing

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Discover the benefits for yourself

A secure investment in proven LED UV technology

The Acuity platform has been the industry benchmark since 2007 with thousands of machines installed worldwide. The Acuity Ultra R2 features the very latest LED and UV technologies to deliver unbeatable performance, along with the quality and reliability you would expect from Fujifilm.

Exceptional quality in superwide format

With the Acuity Ultra R2, you get the excellent high quality, productivity and reliability our Acuity range is known for, on a massive industrial scale – up to 5 metres wide.

High quality, high performance printheads
3-level greyscale printheads deliver 3.5 pl native drop sizes up to 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution, making use of 2,656 nozzles arranged across a width of 108 mm.

Excellent build quality using industrial-quality components
The chassis is a substantial construction made from welded steel box tubing and solid steel bars, contributing to the 7.7 t and 4.7 t weights of both models. This helps to ensure the printer displays very little vibration and very accurate drop placement.

Linear-driven printhead carriage delivers superb registration
Linear motors ensure smooth edge-to-edge printing with no vibrations at the end of the run to deliver accurate ink drop placements. This means no loss in print quality at the print edge.

Water-cooled vacuum table
A unique chilled vacuum table maintains the substrate temperature while printing and allows the use of thin heat-sensitive substrates, reducing media shrinkage and wrinkling.

Solid media transport system ensures accuracy
Two pairs of rubberised rollers both front and back deliver a consistently accurate media feed and provide consistency over long print runs or when accuracy is needed for tiled applications.

Advanced features to maximise productivity

The Acuity Ultra R2 is equipped with a range of advanced features to maximise uptime and ensure flexible and highly productive printing.

Ink spitting to minimise machine downtime
The Acuity Ultra R2 is fitted with a spit function designed to reduce machine downtime. This maintains the print quality and helps to increase the overall consistency of the printed results

Media crash detectors to prevent printhead damage
The carriage is equipped with media crash detectors on either side. These react to obstructions on the vacuum table to stop the carriage and prevent damage to the printheads.

Auto media thickness and position measurement
The Acuity Ultra R2 is equipped with a media detector mounted on the carriage. This is used to determine the position and thickness of the media.

Mechanical substrate detector
The Acuity Ultra R2 is equipped with media sensors positioned under the rear media tension rollers. The Acuity Ultra R2 5000 is equipped with 3 sensors. The Acuity Ultra R2 3200 is equipped with 2 sensors. The media sensors detect when media is loaded onto the machine, and alert the operator if there is a fault with the media loading, for example if a roll of media has run out, or the media is not tight. The sensors use ultrasonic detection technology, and will work for all media, including clear media.

Long printhead life minimises costs of consumables
With an impressively long life, you won’t have to worry about replacing printheads as often. Combined with low ink consumption, the long printhead life reduces the hassle and costs associated with replacing consumables.

Multi-roll capability maximises productivity for smaller jobs
With a throughput of up to 400 m² per hour, the machine has the potential to produce huge volumes of work when printing on three rolls simultaneously, as well as printing superwide format graphics up to five metres in width.

Designed with the operator in mind
As well as technical enhancements to the Acuity Ultra R2, there is a strong focus to reduce maintenance and improve serviceability for the operator. A new intuitive GUI, smoked Perspex panels allowing the user to view print safely during production, and the integration of clean and dirty working areas to avoid contamination, are all examples of the developments that ultimately save time and money and improve overall price/performance.

High performance Uvijet GS and AU inks from award-winning factory

New, high-density inks deliver superb colour vibrancy and a wide colour gamut. Excellent inter-coat laydown produces solid backlit colours and prints. The inks also do not exhibit cracking when folded due to the low ink build.

Ultra-low ink consumption
The new high-density inks are delivered using 3.5 pl printheads, resulting in a very low film thickness and ultra-low ink consumption, resulting in very low cost-in-use and higher profit per print.

As we branch out from being a wide format materials supplier into hardware, we felt that the ‘superwide’ 5m Acuity Ultra R2 printer would be a perfect fit for our portfolio.

Mark Mashiter | Soyang

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Now, with an Acuity Ultra R2 included in our fleet of printers, we can offer our customers an even faster and more reliable service, particularly when delivering ‘superwide’ 5m prints.

Miguel Ángel Gómez Cano | Oedim

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The combination of the high quality and productivity that the Acuity Ultra offers is exceptional. It’s also incredibly versatile, with low ink consumption.

Sven Breiter | CEO, Fokina GmbH

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Applications

Versatility on a massive scale

With its massive format size, 2- or 3-up multi-roll potential, and ability to print on a broad range of materials, the Acuity Ultra R2 gives you the ability to profitably create exhibition graphics, POS displays, high-value graphic art, backlit displays, outdoor displays, outdoor signage and more.

Ideal for high-end indoor displays

The Acuity Ultra R2 is not only ideal for out of home applications such as single billboards and signage, it’s also perfect for high-end indoor displays where close viewing requires images to be exceptionally clear and vibrant. With quality comparable to leading water-based inkjet systems, the Acuity Ultra R2 can propel your business into the luxury brand market.

Discover more…

Find out more about the Acuity Ultra R2 in our new range guide

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The new blueprint for wide format

From the place where it all began, comes a new blueprint for wide format

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Reading time: 8 minutes

The Fujifilm name has been closely associated with UV inkjet technology since 2005 – the year in which Fujifilm acquired the pioneering UV inks and inkjet company, Sericol, based in the seaside town of Broadstairs in Kent. Founded in 1950, Sericol had long been a screen inks pioneer and market leader. Then, in the 1970s, it launched the world’s first instant curing UV screen inks and built on this experience to commercialise the first UV digital inkjet systems and inks in the world in 1999. The immediate and rapid growth in this new sector resulted in Sericol being presented with a Queens Award for Enterprise in 2004 for its role in developing and commercialising these new UV inkjet systems.

With the Fujifilm acquisition in 2005, forming what is now known as Fujifilm Speciality Ink Systems, the company has gone on to produce some of the most highly regarded UV cured inkjet inks and systems on the market, including the popular Acuity range of wide format printers launched in 2007, and now with more than 1,800 global installations. This 20 years of experience means Fujifilm has developed a keen sense of what the market really needs, and perhaps more importantly, how it is likely to change in the future.

Market maturity

The early years of wide format UV inkjet development were largely defined by advances in technology that delivered rapid and continual increases in print speed and quality. In 2018, however, Fujifilm recognised that the market had reached an advanced degree of maturity, and a point at which a very high level of quality and productivity was assumed. New product launches were tending to offer only very marginal improvements in print speed and quality. In addition, Fujifilm also became aware that there was an opportunity to use these evolving technologies to drive improvements in wide format print ROI.

The market had reached a tipping point – a point at which more of the same, with minor improvements, was no longer enough. The market needed something fundamentally new. So, three years ago, Fujifilm made a strategic decision to start the process of rethinking its Acuity wide format offering; focusing on new ways to deliver improved value, versatility and ease of use and in particular on defining a new level of print ROI. Fujifilm set out to do what it had first done back in 2000: to create a new blueprint for wide format.

Back to first principles

In terms of printing hardware and systems, Fujifilm has always been a technology company first and foremost, rather than a manufacturer, working with a range of OEM partners and other specialists to provide the best possible platforms for its inkjet technology. The Acuity range already has a deserved reputation for quality and reliability, but for this next chapter in the Acuity story, Fujifilm wanted a new level of design influence and control in order to take full advantage of what was possible, to create something that offered far more than mere marginal improvements.

To do this, the Fujifilm team returned to first principles, starting with an almost blank canvas and a challenge to strip everything back and create a completely new and improved range of machines. To help with this process, they brought in an award-winning industrial design company and tasked them not simply with making changes to what had gone before, but with completely rethinking the press design to maximise the value, productivity, ease of use and – most importantly – the ROI.

Fujifilm’s vision was to combine stunning aesthetics with exceptional functionality. In order to achieve this, the first step was to carry out wide ranging research, so the two companies embarked on an extensive and intensive listening exercise, meeting not only with business owners and directors, but also with press operators who had experience of working not only with Fujifilm machines, but others too.

This exercise produced an understanding of what worked, what didn’t, and what changes (whether simple or radical) would improve the value, versatility, usability, productivity and ROI, while retaining an eye for the environment in terms of reducing waste an making for a safer and more contented workplace.

It was clear from this exercise that the owners and directors of these companies want equipment that’s reliable, fast and able to give them a rapid return on investment, but being in a creative industry, they also want machines that look stylish and that are easy to work with. For press operators, it was also clear that good machine design – aside from the obvious benefits to productivity – can be the difference between job satisfaction and great frustration, and the listening exercise uncovered many aspects of machine design that could be improved upon.

Fujifilm combined the findings from this extensive research exercise with its own knowledge and inkjet expertise to provide a structure for the design process. In parallel, the team also carried out comprehensive research into the best components and technologies on the market, and the best routes to assembly and manufacture. The output from all this research and creative thinking was effectively a completely new blueprint for what a UV inkjet system of the future should look like, how it should perform, and how it could be brought to life.

Bringing it all together

Four design criteria emerged from the blueprint that informed all design choices and helped to identify the right manufacturers and suppliers to work with, as well as the OEM partners to help to bring it all together. These were: quality, value, performance and ease of use. In addition, every component part selected was chosen with these four criteria in mind, from the printheads to the user interface, lamps, static control and vacuum solutions. In all cases, Fujifilm made choices based on answering questions like: “does it do what it needs to do?” or “could it be done better?” Nothing was left unchanged that could be improved.

Three years on, the result of this blueprint is the all new Acuity range, designed and developed by Fujifilm. First and foremost, this new Acuity range has been designed to redefine the price / performance and ROI that can be expected from a UV inkjet system. This has been achieved through careful design choices, stripping back features that don’t add value, and maximising quality, value and performance where it matters most. The result is a high performance range available at a competitive price with low cost in use, a combination that radically changes print ROI.

The new Acuity range is also built for printers from the ground up, resetting expectations around operational ease of use. The ‘question everything’ approach to the whole process has allowed Fujifilm to put the operator experience front and centre. “We’ve taken on board the frustrations and inconveniences identified in our extensive market research, and addressed those concerns to create a range that is a real joy to work with and operate, with the additional benefit of maximising uptime and productivity,” says Kevin Jenner, European Marketing Manager, Fujifilm Wide format Inkjet Systems.

We’ve taken on board the frustrations and inconveniences identified in our extensive market research, and addressed those concerns to create a range that is a real joy to work with and operate, with the additional benefit of maximising uptime and productivity.

Kevin Jenner | European Marketing Manager

The first two printers made to this new blueprint are the Acuity Ultra R2 and the Acuity Prime. The Acuity Ultra R2 is a completely redesigned version of the Acuity Ultra, which itself had set a new standard for superwide print when it was launched in 2018. The Acuity Prime is an entirely new, mid-range flatbed which offers ease of use and print ROI unmatched by anything else on the market.

For more than 10 years since its initial launch, the Acuity range has built a reputation for quality, versatility and value and this new range will enhance the Acuity brand on all those fronts, while maintaining the reliability standards that have always been the hallmark of Fujifilm’s inkjet systems. And of course, the new printers take advantage of Fujifilm’s renowned UV inkjet ink.

Learn more about the Acuity range

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Acuity Prime

The most economical and versatile wide format flatbed printer ever

The new blueprint for wide format printing

Produces the best-in-class quality at the highest productivity on a wide range of rigid and flexible media

A true flatbed printer with an award-winning design, the Acuity Prime offers high quality printing on a range of rigid and flexible media, supported by its five dedicated vacuum zones and jettable primer. It is available at a cost effective price point and offers an excellent return on investment.