Offset Printing
Applied Innovations Right Up Close
Wednesday 04. June 2008 - manroland to present theme-related exhibits at drupa
For years now manroland has been intensively involved in discussions about the newspaper of tomorrow. This is the starting point and the idea behind the global market leaders presentation at drupa 2008. The exhibits in the Webfed Park show examples of where these discussions stand at the present time.
To illustrate this a printing tower of a three-page wide format XXL COLORMAN newspaper press equipped with relevant Applied Innovations will be the focal point of the presentation. The major items will be the APL automatic plate changing system, the Eltex Innocure UV dryer, and an Inkjet printing head integrated in the newspaper press tower.
manroland is actively accompanying the newspaper industry in its present process of change. Implementation of the objectives is based on a dual strategy: enhanced product value and increased production efficiency. With the added value philosophy Applied Innovations these two objectives are brought to a common denominator, meaning application- and user-oriented innovations as well as innovations that safeguard investments which prove their worth in day-to-day production and create added value for publishers and their customers.
The primary task to ensure the success of an enterprise remains bringing down costs per copy. This is where the APL automatic plate changing system represents a groundbreaking milestone along the way to an automated printing process. Hybrid presses that work with two ink systems – coldset and heatset – enable new business models to be developed. With an installed base of around 150 of this type of newspaper press, manroland leads the way with this technology. The first newspaper presses equipped with UV dryers are attracting great attention in the market with high output and low space requirements. The same applies to inline printing of variable data which has been made possible by the successful integration of Inkjet technology.
APL: the highest level of production efficiency
A significant trend in the newspaper industry is run splitting which makes fast plate change ever more important. As a response to this manroland developed the fullyautomatic APL (AutomaticPlateLoading) system for newspaper presses. With APL all the plates for a newspaper press are changed in around three minutes which reduces the time needed previously for manual plate change by 90 percent. To achieve this manroland was the first to introduce industrial robots for print production. This Applied Innovations project unites the core competences of manroland and the Kuka Robot Group, the technological leader in construction, control and drive of industrial robots. APL has been in practical use now for several months in daily production, and the system can change panorama plates, single plates, or all plates on a cylinder at once. Satellite as well as blanket-to-blanket design presses can be equipped with the APL system and it can also be retrofitted to presses in the field.
UV dryers are accelerating the hybrid trend
More and more newspaper publishers are paying close attention to the heatsetcoldset concept. After all, the advantages of hybrid presses are plain to see: they make new business models possible, increase the degree of utilization of a newspaper press through new applications, boost product quality and variety, and offer a platform for creative ads. The trend started in the Middle East, has then spread to Southern Europe and South America, and now came to North America. A recent development is retrofitting of UV towers to presses in the field to generate additional business. UV dryers provide high and brilliant printing quality and also enable coated and glossy papers to be printed. The first industrial-scale application has been running in Vienna for over one year now where a COLORMAN equipped with Eltex Innocure UV dryers prints commercial products and newspapers with mixed UV and coldset pages at a speed of up to 90,000 copies per hour. A COLORMAN pressline with eight printing towers is to start up at the Transcontinental Group in Montreal, Canada in the spring of 2009. One of these towers is to be equipped with UV drying with two others being prepared for this process..
Integrated Inkjet – added value for the printed product
The combination of newspaper printing with the flexibility of the digital Inkjet process opens up a wealth of new possibilities. The applications for Integrated Inkjet range from individualized and personalized newspapers with regional and local reporting for selected reader groups and go through integrated games and lotteries right up to 1:1 marketing. Integrated Inkjet brings newspaper publishers genuine added value because variable data can be printed inline on every page and in any place of a newspaper. This can be done at full press output and a web speed of 15 meters per second. The low costs of 0.05 to 0.2 eurocents per imprint make the process even more attractive.
More than printing systems alone
The PRINTVALUE Park provides an extensive overview of manrolands portfolio of service and support products. A lot of space has been allocated to printnet, an interesting brand for newspaper printers in particular. The Innovation Park focuses on future-oriented technologies, and the Energy and Environmental Center presents solutions for resource conservation and energy-efficient print production.