In December, Heidelberg hosted an open house at its Mt Wellington premises, showcasing its latest Anicolor technology.
The world’s biggest press maker demonstrated its intent in keeping offset printers competitive
Enter Anicolor technology from Heidelberg. The company says that its new technology produces short runs efficiently and flexibly. Its New Zealand staff calls Anicolor a game breaker.
For many print buyers, the high proportion of waste sheets and longer makeready times numbered among the knockout criteria for offset print shops. To deal with this situation, Heidelberg developed a new inking unit technology for the Speedmaster SM 52 which, it claims, significantly widens the range of applications in which offset can be used cost-effectively for short runs, without sacrificing advantages for longer runs.
Danny Beskalo, sales manager Heidelberg New Zealand, lists the main features of Anicolor technology:
• Short set up times
• Reduced material costs
• Faster job changes
• Consistent and even ink application
• Reproducible quality for repeat jobs
• No need for special consumables
• Maximum speed of 15,000 sph
• Simple operation
Beskalo performed MC duties at Heidelberg’s open house held in December. He says, “Considering the demonstrations were conducted as printers were gearing up for the traditional bustle of Christmas, we were delighted at the number of our customers that came to the evening demo and the one on one demonstrations, which we held the following week.”
During the evening demo, the team at Heidelberg printed four jobs while providing commentaries on how the press functioned. Beskalo says, “Our customers were asked during the makeready, ‘Which sheet was sellable from the 20 make-ready sheets?’ Without exception, the experienced print attendees stated that sheets five to 10 were so close to the proof it was quite unnerving. Some of the printers who’ve been a long time in the trade and Star Trek fans said, ‘This is printing… but not as we know it.’”
Discussion on the press performance continued for quite some time after the demonstration finished, with customers keen to know how it achieved such productivity. Heidelberg says the secret lies in a technology that rationalises the inking unit to optimal effect and cuts production costs, particularly in terms of make-ready times and waste.
Beskalo says the press continued impressing visitors in the week that followed. Heidelberg invited them to bring in their own jobs to print. He continues, “many of them did bring jobs in and, as you would expect, there were some real nasty jobs in the mix as well, but there was no problem. From PDF’s on CD to PDF’s sent when the customer arrived, we imposed, calibrated, proofed and plated and within the hour the job was printed four colour plus aqueous coating ready for the next phase of the production. This is how the machine can compete with digital and even short run A2.”
Every job printed during the week had production data collected with the press reporting tools and each customer saw a detailed electronic analysis of how the press performed with the job. Beskalo says that, for the week of demonstrations, to make ready with 20-25 sheets and run 200 sheets, the total production time from start to finish on all of the jobs varied from seven to nine and a half minutes.
Beskalo adds, “ For customers who were unable to attend the demonstration, we have kept the CIP4 captured production analysis, plus proofs, plus make ready sheets to allow other printers to see how truly revolutionary this press really is.”
