'The industry has been waiting for an industrial digital print solution,' said Heidelberg head of digital Jason Oliver. 'What do we mean industrial? A press that when you come in in the morning it's ready to just run; and that is after it has run all night. That is what our customers expect. This is a product from vendors with experience of delivering equipment that just runs. It's not about dancing girls and putting on a show. It's time for a revolution in digital print.'

The PrimeFire 106 uses paper handling technology from Heidelberg's XL 106 offset press, including feeder, coating and drying. The printheads are Fujifilm Dimatix Samba heads, first launched in 2008 in the JetPress 720 and now in the field in more than 70 machines. These heads are 1200 x 1200 dpi greyscale with a minimum droplet size of 2 picolitres.

The initial focus for the 2000 sheets per hour machine, which will be offered in a seven colour CMYK plus orange, violet and green configuration, will be packaging and specialist sheet applications. It uses a water-based ink that is claimed to meet Swiss Ordinance conformity, which makes it suitable for food contact applications and that is also said to be de-inkable, to ensure recyclability of the printed output.

Heidelberg will sell the machine as a package of hardware, services and consumables rather than using a click-charge model, although the firm declined to reveal any pricing or cost-of-ownership figures until June.

It will be shown running live at drupa, with a beta test in Central Europe commencing before the end of 2017 and controlled sales starting in 2017. The press first ran a fortnight ago in front of Heidelberg and Fuji staff.

At a pre-drupa press event on Friday 19 February at Heidelberg's research and development facility, the press was shown running, although the output was not available for inspection. The firm also concealed the details of the press' delivery, which it claimed incorporates unique technology to enable close integration with post-press and the ability to manage personalised sheets and very small runs. 

Fujifilm will provide further details on its version of the machine nearer to the show. 'Fujifilm and Heidelberg are the number one players in their fields and we are expecting great things through our co-operation,' said Fujifilm Graphic Systems chairman and CEO Hitoshi Yoshida.