Offset Printing
Chinese print shops are growing with Heidelberg machines from the plant in Shanghai
Wednesday 31. July 2019 - 350 million printed sheets in ten years - the first Speedmaster CD 102 from the plant in Shanghai with impressive performance at Hefei Jingyi Printing Ltd.
“In the last 26 years, I have always purchased printing presses from Heidelberg in order for us to grow,” says Su Zhao Chun, owner of Hefei Jingyi Printing Ltd. in Hefei. During this period, he has invested in four Speedmaster CD 102 presses, two Speedmaster SM 102 and two Speedmaster XL 75 . All the presses are four-color models and were all supplied by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg). The range of services offered by the print shop has changed significantly in recent years. Previously, the focus was on printing advertising material. Nowadays, the printing of books and magazines accounts for 95 percent of activity. Over 100 employees produce in two-shift operation at the Hefei site. Su Zhao Chun is particularly proud of his range of services, which is characterized by a high degree of flexibility, fast delivery and top quality. The combination of Speedmaster CD 102 and Speedmaster XL 75 help him with this and enable him to produce both short and long runs economically.
Exactly ten years ago, Hefei Jingyi Printing installed the first Speedmaster CD 102, which was delivered from the Heidelberg plant in Shanghai. The totalizer now shows 350 million sheets. The positive experiences and, in particular, the high degree of stability persuaded Su Zhao Chun to install a new Speedmaster CD 102 four-color at the beginning of this year. It also comes from the Heidelberg plant in Shanghai. “The new Speedmaster CD 102 has doubled our productivity,” enthuses Su Zhao Chun. “The presses from Shanghai offer us an excellent price-performance ratio and they produce with extremely high reliability.” With an average run length of 3,000 to 5,000 sheets, the high running speed and the short makeready times pay off. The new Speedmaster CD 102 from the Heidelberg plant in Shanghai already set several records in the first few weeks at Hefei Jingyi Printing: In one shift 156,000 sheets were printed and in another 240 plate changes were performed, meaning that a new form was started, on average, every 12 minutes. “This underlines the high popularity of the Speedmaster CD 102 in China, just like in the rest of the world,” explains Florian Franken, product manager for the CD 102. “The Speedmaster CD 102 is highly versatile, whether for long or short runs, thin substrates or cardboard with thicknesses of up to a millimeter – the press offers outstanding productivity, quality and value retention, and thus a high degree of investment security for our customers.”
Increased demand for customer-specific presses in Asia
“The market in Asia is evolving, and we are seeing strong demand for customer-specific machines and a wealth of variants, especially for packaging printing,” explains Achim Mergenthaler, manager of the Heidelberg site in Shanghai. “We are proud of our high quality, which – thanks to the high standards of the Heidelberg production network – is equal to that of the machines from the production facility in Wiesloch-Walldorf. Since the end of 2018, we have been delivering the Speedmaster CD 102 with eight-colors, coating unit and UV preparation for the first time, in order to satisfy customer requirements on site.”
At the beginning of April, the first Speedmaster CD 102-8+L from the plant in Shanghai was installed on the premises of Xianjunlong Colour Printing Co. Ltd in Shenzhen. It is the Speedmaster CD 102 with number 999 from the plant in Shanghai. Xianjunlong is a leading Chinese packaging producer, specializing in packagings for spirits, cigarettes and luxury goods. “We need a printing press that meets our high requirements and, above all, the high standards of our customers, and helps us to expand our capacity,” states Mr. Zhuang, member of the management board. “In particular, our press operators are delighted with the new operating concept and the intelligent control with Intellistart.” The new press is in operation as part of an extensive fleet of Speedmaster CD 102 and CX 102 presses.
Furthermore, as the first boxuni production partner, Xianjunlong has also implemented a fully integrated web-to-pack production line – from a cloud-based online platform to printing on a Heidelberg Primefire 106 and postpress.
Shanghai is the Heidelberg Groups production site in Asia. There, 420 people are employed in production, in addition to 150 sales and service employees for the Greater Shanghai area. Printing presses in 50 x 70 cm and 70 x 100 cm formats are produced there, mainly intended for sale in China, but also for other Asian markets and the rest of the world. The assembly plant went into operation in 2006, and the 1,000th printing press was delivered in the fall of 2013. Production volumes have been increasing ever since, and now every fifth printing unit is produced in Shanghai. Complex machine configurations also became available recently.