At Düsseldorf, Müller Martini cemented its reputation for innovation and design
The company encouraged high visitor interest on all exhibition days with its motto ‘grow with us’, highlighting innovations from its business divisions of Print Finishing Systems, Bookbinding Systems, Mailing Systems, OnDemand Solutions and Printing Presses. And it presented a new generation of ergonomically designed machines in a new colour: Laserblue.Rudolf Müller, CEO Muller Martini, said, “We were successful in demonstrating the innovative power of Muller Martini to visitors. The new generation of machines elicited a profound response, and numerous new projects have been launched.”
It introduced the new Primera saddle stitcher series for the medium performance range in three different automation levels of Primera A110 (entry level model for the full size range with 11,000 cycles/hour), Primera C130 (standard model with partial automation and 13,000 cycles/hour) and Primera E140 (highly automated model with 14,000 cycles/hour). This system solution can be precisely tailored to customer needs and later, because of its modularity, easily expanded.
Other innovations included:
• The new fully automatic Apila palletising system can be used universally to process loose, blocked, foil wrapped or strapped bundles.
• The double stream model of the Preciso rotary trimmer, which has a space saving design and promises excellent trimming on two levels.
• The new CoLiner pre-gathering system for the newspaper area, demonstrated in combination with the ProLiner high performance inserting system. It offers the user higher layout flexibility, especially in cases of limited space in the mailroom.
• The new gathering machine 3697 with a revolutionary separating principle was demonstrated in combination with the high performance Corona C18 perfect binder under regular working conditions. drupa visitors witnessed a very special moment at the Müller Martini stand: PUR production at 18,000 cycles/hour.
Other business divisions presented continuous CIP4 capable solutions and further advances were shown like the Diamant bookline and the Ventura book sewing machine with motion control, which makes higher output possible with new servo technology.
SigmaLine & Connex
SigmaLine, a fully automated total system for digital book production, and the Connex workflow system also made an appearance.
SigmaLine enables the benefits of digital book production to be utilised, by integrating the subprocesses such as printing, cutting, folding, gathering, perfect binding, cooling and trimming.
Book data that is available in the form of a PDF file is used to generate production data (JDF) and to automatically adjust all the subcomponents within the SigmaLine. At the heart of the system lies the integrated line control, SigmaControl. It integrates all subprocesses, and in this way digital printing presses of different partner firms can be integrated into the SigmaLine and so become part of the continuous JDF workflow. This consistent integration and linking of prepress data to digital printing right through to the finishing of the final product enables short runs to be produced economically.
The SigmaLine makes use of the Connex workflow system. With Connex, the JDF for each job can be generated in a few mouse clicks. Connex can be used as a fully functional, stand-alone solution or as an interface to an MIS. It allows all Müller Martini systems to be networked with a customer’s management information system (MIS).
Citing figures from the book market in Great Britain, which show that ten per cent of the titles account for more than 90 per cent of volumes, Müller Martini found that by far the greater portion of titles result in short runs.
With the book market’s trend toward smaller runs continuing, Müller Martini used drupa to present SigmaLine as the solution to the problem of how to produce small job quantities economically.
