Agfa’s Impressive New Jeti Press Debuts

On June 12^th and 13^th, 2018, Agfa Graphics invited a range of customers, prospects and journalists from around the world to its Mortsel, Belgium headquarters, where attendees experienced the public debut of the company’s newest press: the Jeti Tauro H3300 LED.

Customers and prospects check out the new Agfa Jeti Tauro H3300 LED at the public debut of the press in Mortsel, Belgium.

The event was spilt into two days, with roughly 150 people attending each day, for a total of around 300 people. The goal of the event wasn’t just to announce the new press, however. The event showed off not just the power of Agfa’s latest wide-format press, but also the breadth and depth of it’s entire line.

After the Jeti Tauro H3300 LED, where the company had both the roll-to-roll and fully automated configurations running, attendees were invited into their main showroom, where 11 other Agfa presses were up and running, along with a wide selection of samples, on nearly every type of substrate imaginable.

An Extreme Philosophy

To kick off the event, Worldwide Marketing Director, Willy Van Dromme hosted attendees at a reception, with a wide range of “cubes” demonstrating the various Agfa capabilities and abilities. He then went on to walk attendees through Agfa’s “extreme” campaign, that sums up what the company hopes to accomplish:

1. Extreme quality
2. Extreme total cost of ownership
3. Extreme productivity
4. Extreme support

“We see four pillars that contribute to the value that we offer to our customers,” says Van Dromme. ”These four things define what we call our ‘value proposition model.’” He went on to note that their execution in all four of these areas have clearly worked, with 2017 coming in as the best year for their inkjet product line yet. And, he noted, considering the company also celebrated their 150^th anniversary this year, with a constant goal of improving their technology, services and products, that is a major accomplishment.

The Jeti Tauro H3300 LED Specs

The Jeti Tauro H3300 LED is a large press – the company deliberately designed it so printers can run two master rolls side-by-side, running a full bleed while still having room in the material for pockets and other types of finishing. The roll-to-roll configuration can run a single roll up to 123 inches, or two 63-inch rolls in tandem, as opposed to the more standard 60 inches. In the flatbed configuration, media up to 130 inches wide can be used, as well as any combination of sizes up to that.

And printers don’t have to choose between roll-to-roll and flatbed. Agfa executives at the event noted that the base unit for the press is standard across all configurations and models, with the loaders and unloaders all considered accessories that, according to the company, can be switched out easily in around 10 minutes.

The Jeti Tauro H3300 LED is capable of running in a fully automated print environment, at speeds up to 4,676 square feet per hour.

“This flagship press combines high image quality and high productivity in one machine,” says Reinhilde Alaert, marketing product manager of Sign & Display at Agfa Graphics. “As you can see for yourself, this is a robust machine, that is designed to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have designed this machine to cover a really wide range of applications, and a wide range of media.”

She noted that there are three different configurations, with differing numbers of print heads, depending on the types of applications the shop intends to run: a 6-color model with 48 print heads, and a 6-color plus white or a 6-color plus white and primer, each with 60 print heads. The press also uses inks with a high pigment load, allowing it to use less ink to achieve the same results, creating a thinner ink layer which not only gives it a more “offset like” quality, but also lowers the total cost of ownership over time.

Beyond the Press

Once attendees had spent time with the Jeti Tauro H3300 LED and in the Agfa showroom, they adjourned to a reception at the Michelin-star restaurant at the Museum aan de Stroom in nearby Antwerp. There, the keynote speaker, Tobias Desgel, Founder of Combiner, and former curator of the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, wove together a compelling argument for companies and individuals to push themselves out of their comfort zone if they want to be successful.

He noted that companies such as Agfa, with it’s long history, are still going strong because they are always striving for new ideas. Just like with Nobel Laureates, breakthroughs in creativity come because individuals pushed their own limits and thinking, and then when they had an idea, weren’t afraid to try executing it.

The difference between creative, successful people and companies, he says, isn’t whether they find success in everything they do, but rather that they keep trying to execute on their ideas and see where it takes them. Persistency, he noted, is key. “If you want to make ground-breaking changes,” Desgel says, “it takes time. If you don’t understand the power of persistency, you will not succeed.”

Sometimes, he went on to note, it doesn’t matter if you’re the smartest person in the room, or if you have the best idea; if you can’t communicate and execute on your ideas, you won’t succeed. He also noted that, “the most important thing is collaboration. Most Nobel Prizes are shared — usually between two to three people every year because it’s almost impossible to do it by yourself.” For companies — and printers — who want to thrive, that is an important trait to cultivate throughout the business.