Strategic investment for efficient mass production of digital short runs; investment emphasises relevance of industrial digital printing solutions from HEIDELBERG for global market; HEIDELBERG offers configurator for hybrid printing production
Shengda Printing Technology, China’s largest web-to-print company, has taken a major step in digitalisation by investing in a total of ten HEIDELBERG Jetfire 50 industrial inkjet systems.
95% of Shengda’s orders come online, with a daily capacity of 80,000 orders. The company became the first Chinese user of a Jetfire 50 industrial inkjet system, and has already produced over 10 million prints since its installation in June 2025.
Shengda is continuously forging ahead with its digital transformation and increasingly focusing on digital printing. Following its very positive initial experiences with a Jetfire 50 from HEIDELBERG, the company has now invested in a total of ten further inkjet systems of this type, which will be installed at several sites in China in the coming months.
This marks another milestone in Shengda’s strategic approach, which is geared toward the mass production of digitally printed short runs. Additionally, Shengda produces a large proportion of its orders still using sheetfed offset printing. The company has around 200 printing units from HEIDELBERG in use, covering both large and medium formats.
Digital Ecosystem
The decision to place the sizable follow-up order was made following intensive testing and comparisons with other technologies available in the market. The comprehensive digital ecosystem, especially in terms of the superior colour quality, the high printing stability, and system availability, made HEIDELBERG’s products the preferred choice for Shengda. The HEIDELBERG global service network provides 24/7 rapid response; even in the event of unexpected equipment issues, minimising production downtime through readily available technical support and spare parts.
Another advantage is that the Jetfire 50 systems enable a significant reduction in personnel costs, improving operating efficiency. The Jetfire systems are a key part of the fully automated production lines for digital printing, which are fed directly with web-to-print jobs using the Prinect workflow and the JDF Import function. Shengda has a low-cost digital solution for producing short runs that involve high quality and customised covers combined with identical inside pages – all in a single pass. “The Jetfire systems’ level of automation and performance is impressive and perfectly matches our vision of a digital future,” says Shengda owner Cui Wen Feng. “In the medium term, we are planning to install between 20 and 30 digital production lines. Investing in the Jetfire systems marks a key step toward this goal.” Shengda has already invested over 300 million renminbi in digital printing technology to date. It prints around six million A4 pages every month and has the potential to produce up to eight million.
“Shengda’s investment emphasises the strength of our industrial digital printing solutions and the relevance of Jetfire technology for the global market,” says Dr. David Schmedding, Chief Technology & Sales Officer at HEIDELBERG. “It also confirms the success of our growth strategy for our core business.” According to market assessments, the global digital printing market that is accessible to HEIDELBERG, including service and consumables, will increase from the current level of around 5 billion euros to 7.5 billion euros by 2029. With this in mind, HEIDELBERG has expanded its portfolio in both the inkjet and toner segments, which will substantially boost the company’s sales of digital printing solutions.
HEIDELBERG Launches Hybrid Print Production Configurator
HEIDELBERG now offers the opportunity to gain a quick insight into the world of hybrid print production on its website using a configuration tool based on their order structure. After entering the print run and number of jobs, interested parties receive a recommendation on which combination of digital and offset solutions best suits their requirements, and where all options can be compared at a glance.
