INKISH.NEWS -

Japan is, by all measures, a fantastic place. What strikes you is how clean everything is and the extremely friendly and polite Japanese you meet everywhere. It makes me think that the world would be a better place if we adopted some of the Japanese behaviors and their sense of quality, and even in the most crowded trains, people are responsible to each other - and as a visitor, you have zero fear of crime. Visiting Japan is familiar and entirely exotic and different, and we love being here.

I worked a lot on the first days, managing some of the last preparations for our NON-EVENT, but we got time to see a bit of Tokyo - and Jan Majnik, Ziga Kovac, and my son Mads Reitoft have seen a lot while adapting to a new time-zone, nine hours ahead of Europe.

IGAS is Japan's major print event, with several hundred exhibitors still the most important. However, IGAS was much more significant in the past, with more exhibition space, more exhibitors, more halls, and visitors from many countries. As one guy told me, IGAS was one of the four big - drupa, Ipex, print (Chicago), and IGAS.

We have been invited to cover IGAS by Horizon; in this context, Horizon is the biggest exhibitor, and for a good reason. They continue the great tradition from The Think Smart Factory event in Kyoto and other/previous events, showing end-to-end solutions. The solutions are developed with print OEMs like Screen, Fujifilm, Ricoh, RGMT (Ryobi), Miyakoshi, Canon, Konica-Minolta, and several software partners for Horizon's ICE Link workflow technology. As we are being introduced to the various solutions by the General Manager of Market Products, Yasuo Taketsugu, he also 'breaks' that Heidelberg is now a partner with Horizon integrating Prinect with ICE link.

Horizon Booth at IGAS

Integrated solution on display

Carefully rehearsed presentations

The show has opened

Mr. Taketsugu & Mr. Takano

B2 sheet feeder

The end-to-end solutions demonstrate the binding solutions from Horizon and, of course, with an emphasis on the newest products and integration to robotic solutions.

IGAS takes place in two halls - and we will try to give you an overview of the newest and latest during the next few days. A few 'breaking news' products are being introduced at the show. Or at least to me, as I haven't heard about these before. The new B2 toner-based Revoria is an interesting participant in the B2 digital market - competing with Fujifilm's S750, HP Indigo, and the new Ricoh Z75.

Fujifilm also introduces an exciting robot solution that we will show in a film. It has been developed together with Yaskawa. It was a pleasure for me to meet Katsumi Masumoto finally.

One of the bigger challenges covering IGAS is the language barrier. To overcome this, we have developed a format where we ask questions in Japanese and get these answered in Japanese with English subtitles. It will take slightly more time to produce, but we also believe it will give great insight to people from outside Japan as we will try to understand more about the Japanese market.

We have already met many friends and followers - and it is incredible to be approached by people who appreciate our work - thank you for that—encouraging for both my team and me!

Check back to INKISH (both NEWS and TV) for updates the next day!

Author: Morten B. Reitoft