The world's second biggest press manufacturer has announced several new launches for the drupa 2008 exhibition, and says there will be more to come at the show itself.
Speaking to the world's print media in Augsburg last week Gerd Finkbeiner, CEO of the newly independent company, presented a bullish view of print, and of his own company, which has just announced its preliminary 2007 figures, showing an EBIT (pretax) profit of Euro125m on sales of just under Euro2bn.
Visitors to drupa will see a perfecting version of the super large format XXL press, the Roland 900, in sizes, 7, 7B and 8. Roland will also launch Plus sized presses in its 3B Roland 700 (780x1040mm) and XXL Roland 900 (126x162mm). adding several centimetres to the sheet size, allowing valuable extra print.
Still under the subject of big Roland will present a concept 96pp Lithoman with a huge 2.86 metre web width. Such a press, if it were ever built, would be able to produce an incredible 3.8 million A4 pages an hour. While Roland itself, as the world's biggest web press manufacturer, is confident it has the engineering ability to produce the press, questions loom over the ability of consumables and ancilliary services to operate at such widths. Roland has just installed its first 2.25 metre web, in Austria, which is producing 3.2 million pages an hour.
Other new developments to be shown at drupa include the inline foiler, so far seen on the Roland 700, for the half sized Roland 500 press. Newspaper presses will now have APL automated plate loading, slashing their plate changing times.
MAN Roland is no longer just concerned with engineering though, and drupa will see the launch of PrintValue, its comprehensive press support package. The four elements of PrintValue include press servicing, consumables performance monitoring, internet press performance monitoring and support, and a range of advice on all aspects of optimising press productivity.
