drupa 2016: A review

11 days packed with interesting discussions with customers, many software demonstrations, countless cups of coffee, tired legs and a cheerful Crew Party – that was drupa 2016!

With around 260,000 visitors from 188 countries, drupa has confirmed its reputation as the largest international exhibition for the printing industry. Although visitor numbers have declined slightly, the decision-makers were well presented (75% of all visitors were executives) and at the Konica Minolta booth we did not sense a decline at all, because the booth was constantly very well attended and recorded even a visitor increase of around 25%.

As we previously announced, our software solutions were represented at the Konica Minolta booth at many stations. But we are not talking of demo installations used only for client presentations. In fact, the majority of print jobs at the entire booth was controlled and printed via our solutions. A productive environment under difficult conditions, but it worked out very well.

In addition, we also presented our new products and further developments at drupa. In case you haven't been at drupa or didn't manage to stop by, please read our summary.

Konica Minolta JT Suite becomes AccurioPro Flux

One of the major announcements was the launch of the new brand AccurioPro, which bundles all digital workflow solutions from Konica Minolta. The name Accurio reflects the ultra-modern and high-precision (= accurate) technology of Konica Minolta, while Pro stands for professional use – et voilà: AccurioPro.

Flux stands for the automated workflow, the fluid productive work, and will in the future replace our previous name "JT Suite". So look forward to our new product version which will be released in July rebranded as AccurioPro Flux!

Beta version of AccurioPro Flux with new features

The new version, which will be released in summer, does not only sparkle with its new name, it comes with a lot of new features as well. At drupa, we presented its highlights for the first time:

• Printer clusters which split print jobs automatically between different printers according to the chosen criteria
• Support of 3rd party printing devices
• Support of native data streams
• Virtual printers which enable the print operator to import and convert data in one step

Detailed information will follow soon. We'll keep you updated here on our blog!

New software solution for label printing: AccurioPro Label Impose

In addition to our existing products, we also introduced a new solution: AccurioPro Label Impose. Label Impose is a tool for the fast and efficient imposition of labels. It has been specially developed for the new label printer from Konica Minolta: bizhub PRESS 71cf.

Label Impose ensures that one or more label artworks are arranged in the most efficient manner on the sheet and therefore simplifies the prepress process dramatically.

Access AccurioPro Flux via the panel of the printing device

It is the deepest possible integration of software and hardware: Operators can access our solution's central print server directly from the panel of the machine without the need to switch to a PC.

Operators are even more flexible and can view, edit, print and forward orders at the panel of the machine.

This panel integration was conceived as a showcase especially for drupa and gained a lot of interest and positive feedback.

Connecting an external web-to-print solution

Another showcase especially set up for drupa was the connection of an external web-to-print solution. For the first time we used our new Flux Connector, which will simplify the integration of other software solutions from different areas in the future.

At drupa we established a connection to lead print's Microshop.

We spend 11 exciting days at the fair – a big thank you to all of you who dropped by. We already anticipate seeing you at drupa 2020!