Offset Printing
7B plus Premiere
Monday 11. February 2008 - First ROLAND 900, XXL in format 7B plus installed
The jump from 3B to large-format – always a challenge, but the Ma-tisk printing company in Slovenia has gone one further and has the first ROLAND 900, XXL in format 7B plus to be installed. A second one is to start up at Ma-tisk still in February 2008.
Slovenia as a printing industry trailblazer? At second glance its not really surprising that the first 7B plus press has been installed in this small but economically strong republic. The domestic market is not very big and so the growing printing industry is extremely export-oriented. Investments are being made to ensure international competitiveness and the Ma-tisk printing company in Maribor, which was established more than 200 years ago, is no exception. Instrumental for the companys success are Technical Manager Gorazd Petri?, and 180 employees working three shifts six days a week. Ma-tisk belongs to the Krater Group which has its headquarters in Ljubljana and whose printing companies produce newspapers, magazines, and books as well as packaging.
Active all over Europe
The formula for success: thanks to the latest large-format press technology and an exemplary internal workflow, Ma-tisk has fast turnaround times and low unit costs. This enables the company to penetrate the markets all over Europe for its core segments of book and commercial printing. The customer portfolio shows how successfully and professionally Ma-tisk operates. A European Community no less; 75 percent of
Ma-tisks jobs are for customers in various EU countries, mainly in Scandinavia and the Benelux region, and the remaining 25 percent are for customers in Slovenia.
7B plus a key success factor
A key success factor is the recently installed four-color ROLAND 900, XXL. When asked why he decided in favour of this specific press, Petri? gives a clear answer: “I expect fast production, high quality and reliability.” And this is exactly what the 7B plus format provides with its sheet size of 1,260 x 1,620 millimetres, which gives a productivity advantage of up to 20 percent compared to the 7B format. With DIN A4 production, the five percent greater area on the sheet means 20 percent more pages: 48 instead of 40. And also in book printing where formats are not necessarily DIN-based, productivity advantages of 15 to 20 percent are realistic.
Faster and more economical book production
Success is calculable. Ma-tisk worked out that the new 7B plus format would bring economic benefits. Around 20 percent of the companys jobs have DIN A4 pages, often 48-page signatures in long runs. However, other books for a customer in France that have smaller page formats can also be produced economically. As a result, a high proportion of book production with average run lengths of 3,000 copies has been switched from 3B format long perfectors to the XXL format. Ma-tisks philosophy is to carry out all stages of production in-house.
Declining run lengths and ultra-short delivery times
Petri? has to meet his customers requirements: “Although book printing involves many production stages, our clients often demand extremely short delivery times, on the average we only have ten days to complete a book order and that includes distribution. Therefore we need dependable and fast presses.” Only with speedy make-ready and production processes can the current demand for short runs and fast turnaround times be met economically. And so large-format presses with short make-ready times the equal of 3B format presses are a must. CIP3 workflows and make-ready time-reducing QuickChange options make this possible.
Petri? insists on quality in all respects
For Ma-tisk, assured quality and secure production are essential. Petri? insists on “the highest quality that is possible today”. This tallies with MAN Rolands own credo, one that the press manufacturer has been proven to abide by. Petri? also insists on “reliability and excellent service”. And this is just what he gets from Franci Jegli? of MAN Roland Slovenia with his team. Ma-tisk has been very pleased with this so far: “Everything has been perfect which is what I expect all the time,” says Petri?. The press installation went very well, as did the staff training in the MAN Roland Training Center in Offenbach.