Heidelberg Introduces Jetfire Family for Industrial Digital Printing

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) is expanding its digital printing portfolio and presenting the new Jetfire family for the growing industrial digital commercial printing market.

The systems are based on leading inkjet technology from cooperation partner Canon. The new Jetfire family will be integrated into the Heidelberg ecosystem via the Heidelberg Prinect workflow.

“Our aim is to offer our customers who want to operate offset and digital presses simultaneously an attractive and integrated service and product portfolio,” says Dr. David Schmedding, head of sales at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG and chief sales and service officer from July 1.

Heidelberg and Canon see growth potential in the expansion of inkjet printing and want to jointly establish this technology in the printing industry for industrial production. With this step, Heidelberg is also adding sheetfed inkjet solutions to its portfolio alongside toner based Versafire systems and sheetfed offset presses.

As a first step, Heidelberg will be offering an existing B3 digital printing system from Canon with corresponding integration into the Prinect workflow, its own service and consumables under the name Jetfire 50 from drupa 2024 in Düsseldorf. It is planned to deliver the machine to customers from the first quarter of 2025.

In a further phase, Heidelberg is expected to offer an inkjet digital printing press in B2 format for commercial printing from mid-2025, with first shipments planned for early 2026. This machine will use state-of-the-art inkjet technology to take industrial digital printing to a new level and will be offered as the Jetfire 75 from Heidelberg.

With the Gallus Labelfire and the Gallus One for label printing, Heidelberg has already proven that it can offer successful inkjet solutions in an industrial environment. In addition, the company has already established more than 3,000 Versafire toner-based digital printing installations and over 1,500 integration projects with digital printing machines from other manufacturers in the market.

The Jetfire 50 is the new water-based digital production solution for industrial print service providers looking for alternative production methods. In B3 sheetfed format, the system combines all the flexibility benefits of digital printing with the stability of inkjet for commercial printing. With a productivity of 9,120 SRA3 sheets per hour, the machine offers great performance combined with high flexibility and reliability.

The new Jetfire 75 based on water-based inkjet technology in B2 sheetfed format is targeted to set new standards in industrial digital printing. The system can print 8,700 B2 sheets per hour. This makes the Jetfire 75 more than twice as fast as previous machines on the market.

The result: a print capacity of up to 54 million B2 sheets per year achieves high industrial performance in commercial printing. With a paper format of 61 x 75 cm, brochures, books and other commercial jobs can be printed extremely productively, as well as special formats such as posters, 6-up banners or variable or numbered jobs.