World's Largest Digital Demo Centre Opens

Xerox Corporation has opened what it claims to be the world's largest permanent showcase of digital products for the graphic arts and production printing markets.

Xerox Corporation has opened what it claims to be the world's largest permanent showcase of digital products for the graphic arts and production printing markets.

According to the company, the facility - the Gil Hatch Centre for Customer Innovation - has been designed to help customers interact with today's digital technologies and to provide an insight into tomorrow's printing innovations.

Xerox has also announced a faster version of its flagship Xerox iGen3 digital press.

The iGen3 110 will be among more than 20 digital and software systems featured in the Gil Hatch Centre, a multi-million dollar, 100,000-square-foot facility in the heart of Xerox's complex in Webster, New York state.

The centre - the size of about three football fields - is designed to give current and prospective commercial printers and corporate customers integrated, one-stop access to Xerox's portfolio of digital production printing equipment workflows and business development tools said the company.

"These are the kinds of products that are transforming the world of print.

This centre enhances the total customer experience and demonstrates real world ways to increase profits and boost productivity and revenue by improving the entire printing process.

The centre is a tribute to the vision of Gil Hatch, the former president of Xerox's production systems group, who passed away last summer.

Hatch was a noted customer champion who believed that everything we do begins and ends with the customer.

He was a leader in the graphic arts field and helped propel Xerox to the forefront of the digital printing industry," said Quincy Allen, the president of Xerox's production systems group.

Xerox said it expects to host several thousand customers a year from around the world at the new centre, including commercial, quick and in-plant printers, in-house data centres' professionals from service bureaux and digital book publishers.

"Xerox goes beyond just selling us the technology.

It is truly interested in solving our business problems and making sure we are optimising our investment in technology and value-added services," said Janice Van Dyke, chief executive officer of Darwill, a commercial printer in Hillside, Illinois, who spoke at the centre's opening.

Industry analyst Andy Tribute, president of Attributes Associates, pointed to the new product launches and customer centre as examples of the increasing market momentum behind Xerox's strategy.

"While others attempt to replicate the success of Xerox's business model, technology and workflow, the company continues to leapfrog the competition with advancements like the iGen3 110 and a new customer centre that is the most comprehensive of its kind," he said.

In conjunction with the customer centre opening, Xerox launched the iGen3 110 is claimed to provide up to 20 per cent faster document production and to offer new features that maximise flexibility and productivity of the colour press.

It is also claimed to print 110 pages-per-minute (ppm) for standard A4 jobs and up to 120ppm for smaller sheet sizes.

Also featured in the centre are the latest Xerox Freeflow workflows, finishing systems from Xerox and its partners, for bound books, stapled brochures and other complete documents and new technology from Xerox's global research laboratories.

More than 60 employees will work at the centre, which includes an iGen3 press customer training laboratory, a paper feeding and finishing laboratory, multimedia theatre and meeting rooms.

Customers invited to the centre will also be able to see their own applications printed on the Xerox digital equipment in the facility added the company.

For example, a customer considering adding digital print technologies to their business could bring in a job for a short-run colour brochure, catalogue or booklet, prepare it with Freeflow make-ready software, print it on a Xerox Docucolor 8000 or iGen3 press and finish the booklets in-line.

Xerox said it will continue to operate existing customer centres around the world.

Those centres serve as regional locations where customers can receive executive briefings, see live production and office product demonstrations, work with Xerox consultants and test print applications.

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