Offset Printing

Sendai High Speed Offset and Mitsubishi Mark Successful Start-up of DIAMONDSPIRIT

Friday 31. December 2010 - New DIAMONDSPIRIT press boosts color page capacity

Sendai High Speed Offset Ltd., headquartered in Sendai City – the capital of Miyagi Prefecture and largest city in the northeast region of Japan, hosted a celebration on November 10, 2010 to commemorate the completion and start-up of its new printing plant. The event was attended by Mr. Manabu Yamagishi, President of Sendai High Speed Offset, Mr. Ichiro Kifune, Managing Director of Nikkei Shimbun, and Mr. Ken Watabe, President of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Printing & Packaging Machinery, Ltd. All in attendance expressed their highest expectations of the new Sendai Plant and the state-of-the-art Mitsubishi 4 x 1 “DIAMONDSPIRIT” press.
Sendai High Speed Offset was established in 1985 by Iwate Nichinichi Shimbun Group for contract printing of Nikkei Shimbun. The Group started its own newspaper in 1923 and changed the newspaper title to what it is still known as today – Iwate Nichinichi Shimbun – in 1941. While Iwate Nichinichi Shimbun Group continues to increase circulation of its flagship title within Iwate Prefecture, the Group is also expanding its contract printing business in the northern region of Japan and currently operates three subsidiary companies in addition to Sendai High Speed Offset. When the Sendai company was set up in 1985, it installed one Mitsubishi newspaper press and this line was subsequently expanded in 1987 and in 2004. These expansion projects were undertaken to meet demands for greater color page capacity and eventually enabled the press to print 48-page broadsheet newspapers with 12 color pages.
In April 2009, Sendai High Speed Offset decided to build the new Sendai Plant and purchase one Mitsubishi 4 x 1 “DIAMONDSPIRIT” press in order to raise color page capacity from 12 to 16 pages by replacing the existing old 4 x 2 press. Before deciding on the new press, a delegation from Sendai High Speed Offset visited DIAMONDSPIRIT installations to witness actual production runs and became convinced of its state-of-the-art technologies and high print quality productions.
The Mitsubishi 4 x 1 DIAMONDSPIRIT press for Sendai High Speed Offset is rated at 70,000 cph with a cutoff of 546mm (21.5 in) and a web width of 1,626mm (64 in). The press line is configured with two 4/4 tower printing units, four 2/1 tower printing units, one 2:2 double rotary folder and six reelstands. The press is operated by the Mitsubishi press control system with automated features that include ink presetting with CTP interface, automatic color register control and dual web tension control.