Offset Printing

IDCm – InlineDensity Control motorized: perfect ink density made affordable

Thursday 11. June 2015 - Haberbeck boosts printing quality of existing ROTOMAN with an ink density retrofit from manroland web systems

InlineDensity Control (IDC) from manroland web systems is now also available for cost-sensitive retrofit projects. Druckhaus Haberbeck in Lage, Germany, retrofitted a ROTOMAN with the IDCm ink density control. In addition to print quality, the leading commercial printer appreciates the high process stability.
“We wanted to offer our experience in ink density control in a low-cost control system. Customers deciding to retrofit the IDCm system will enjoy increased quality and process reliability while saving resources,” says Florian Fejfar, manroland web systems, explaining the motivation to develop the IDCm ink density control.The Product Manager for Color & Quality describes the innovation and its distinction from the known InlineDensity Control as follows: “The IDCm uses traversing measurement modules. This allows us to offer a much lower cost price at the same tried and tested measurement quality and precision. We are now also able to offer uncomplicated upgrades to existing press equipment.” All of manroland web systems’ developments aim to provide customers with an optimal production environment and maximum flexibility for the long term. Subsequent press expansions and upgrades such as IDCm are a major component of this philosophy. Haberbeck, known for its inline and offline finishing products such as catalogs, flyers, and mailings takes advantage of this first-hand. The company retrofitted a 2004 ROTOMAN with the color control.
Quality upgrade for ROTOMAN
Haberbeck uses the ROTOMAN to efficiently produce small print runs with frequent job changes. The company also requires short retrofit and adjusting times (EDE). In Lage, flying language, price, and image changes are all a part of day-to-day business accompanied by complete image and ink changes. All of these challenges demand stable production quality. IDCm is a sustainable solution, and Günter Wolf, Technical Director of Haberbeck, has been convinced since day one: “We are already familiar with IDC color control thanks to our LITHOMAN and are extremely satisfied with its reliability and performance. We wanted to take advantage of this system for our existing ROTOMAN. But it was necessary for us to keep the procurement costs within a reasonable limit.”
IDC – advantages throughout the pressroom
The advantages of ink density measurement have a positive effect throughout the entire pressroom. Haberbeck installed IDCm as a plug & play version, entailing fewer follow-up adjustments. No software changes are required on the press control console and PressManager. At Haberbeck, IDCm fully meets the expected measurement and control quality, handling, and material savings, as Günter Wolf confirms: “The system impressed us with its excellent measuring precision, comparable to manual measurement. Press operators are unable to make measurements at this speed and level of accuracy. IDCm is completely responsible for ink metering control.” The expert staff takes advantage of the staffing resources freed up by the IDCm since the system opens a significantly larger window of time for runability and process optimizing. “In addition, process stability has improved substantially, while waste has been reduced and ink saved,” Wolf states. He himself understands the production process very well, offering an analysis: “It has become much more transparent thanks to the integrated long-term quality evaluation. This helps us to adjust and optimize existing processes.”
IDC – in-house control system innovation
InlineDensity Control (IDC) is one of many Inline Control systems developed in collaboration between grapho metronic and manroland web systems. This includes ink and cut-off register, fan-out, and lateral web offset, all of which can be fully integrated into the PECOM environment. In a single measurement, IDC determines true ink density values across the entire width of the web. The high frequency of the colorimetry enables a comprehensive quality report, which can be analyzed in a tool such as the PressMonitor.
grapho metronic – success by precision!
grapho metronic is the specialist for reliable, precise colorimetry in commercial, newspaper, and sheetfed printing. For over 50 years, the efficient measurement and control systems have reduced resource consumption, ensuring consistent quality in the production process. Located near the Isar River in Munich, grapho metronic is a subsidiary of manroland web systems GmbH. grapho metronic develops and manufactures highly integrated cameras that are used for process and quality control in automated production. Special application fields include spectral measurement technology, color density and layer thickness detection, register and image recognition at a high frequency and extremely high substrate speeds of up to 18 m/s.