Soar Printing recently became the first New Zealand print company to place an order for the new Heidelberg Speedmaster 52 press with Anicolor inking technology.
Fred Soar, managing director of Soar Printing, says “I saw the Anicolor technology at drupa and was very impressed. From there I visited a site in Australia where the press was in operation and also spoke to a user in England. When I got back to Auckland we undertook a pressroom audit on our short run colour work to see what we were currently doing and to determine what we could do better. We worked out that we could free up a lot of capacity on our A2 press by replacing our older SM 52-four colour press with the new Anicolor press.Soar’s new SM 52 four-colour press will be up and running by February. Heidelberg says its Anicolor anilox inking technology cuts waste sheets by 90 per cent, makeready time by at least 40 per cent and increases productivity by more than 25 per cent over conventional SM 52 technology. It uses conventional inks and plates.
Soar continues, “We looked at the Anicolor press from both an operational perspective and also an environmental standpoint. With this press we knew we could save on operating costs, increase production times and also meet our corporate mandate on environmental sustainability.
“Many of our clients are focused on environmental sustainability and want to know what we as printers are doing to reduce our carbon footprint and our waste paper. The Anicolor press enables us to demonstrate our commitment in this area.” The first printer in New Zealand to become FSC credited, Soar Printing also gained an Enviro-Mark diamond award under the government-linked scheme.
Soar believes the Anicolor press will also fill the gap between digital print runs and the larger volumes they produce offset. He says, “We do a lot of digital printing. There is a nice gap there in the market where you are doing runs of say more than 200 but less than 3000. The Anicolor competitively fills this gap between digital and offset due to its extremely fast make ready and its consistently high quality output.”
