Attendees of the recent Inkjet Summit were full of praise for the event, now in its fourth year. About 100 printers — including more than 15 in-plants — met in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., for three days to learn about all things inkjet. The education-packed event featured numerous presentations by current users of production inkjet presses about the great success they have had with this technology.
The event, produced by NAPCO Media and nGage Events, kicked off Monday evening at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club with a keynote address by Conference Chair Marco Boer, VP of IT Strategies, who discussed the many benefits of inkjet technology, and why attendees should not wait for their competitors to beat them into inkjet.
“The longer you wait,” he cautioned attendees, “the more you’re going to find yourself at a disadvantage.”
Boer was followed by Jamie Huff, president of Progressive Impressions International, who related some of his experiences as an inkjet press user. Then a panel of key inkjet technology suppliers — Canon, HP, Ricoh and Xerox — answered questions from Boer about their offerings.
On Tuesday, InfoTrends’ Barb Pellow started things off with a session that featured two users of inkjet presses: John Jeffrey Bogart, of Freedom Graphic Systems, and Bob Kolva, of Action Mailers. From there, attendees broke into four market segments based on their predominant applications: books, direct mail/marketing, general commercial and transaction. They heard from current users of inkjet technology, who shared their experiences, and sponsors presented case studies for each segment.
Several in-plants participated as speakers and panelists:
- Brett Birky, of Urban Lending Solutions (IPG’s May cover story) talked about his company’s decision to create a new in-plant by adding a pair of Ricoh InfoPrint 5000 GP continuous-feed color inkjet presses.
- Ralph Graves, of TCS-Time Inc., discussed his in-plant’s criteria for choosing a Xerox Impika inkjet press.
- Jud Posner, with the Church of Scientology's in-plant, sat on a panel of inkjet users and related his experiences installing a new Fuji 540W high-speed inkjet web press (see full story in IPG's May issue).
This year’s Inkjet Summit includes an unprecedented number of in-plants from a variety of industries. Among the in-plants in attendance were: Brigham Young University, the Cincinnati Insurance Co., the Church of Scientology International, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, Houston Independent School District, Mayo Clinic, Progressive Insurance, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, the Christian Broadcasting Network, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, University of North Texas and Urban Lending Solutions.
The Inkjet Summit concluded Wednesday evening with an awards dinner. The winners were:
- HP: Best Sponsor Case Study Presentation – Book Segment
- Xerox: Best Sponsor Case Study Presentation – Direct Mail Segment
- Kodak: Best Sponsor Case Study Presentation – General Commercial Segment
- Ricoh: Best Sponsor Case Study Presentation – Transaction Segment
- Company to watch out for: Canon Solutions America
- Overall Contributing Attendee: Robert Kashan, CEO, EarthColor
Watch for more coverage of the Inkjet Summit in IPG.