Your connection in the world of print media

At IPEX 2002 Heidelberg will be demonstrating how media service providers and printers can integrate their processes. In Halls 7 and 8 at this year’s print trade show in Birmingham between April 9 and 17, five solutions will be displayed for various market segments, including industrial print, digital print, commercial print, commercial web and postpress. The key areas of focus will be on integration and digital print solutions.



Heidelberg Presses

Integration of the printing press as a means of enhancing efficiency and control, lowering costs and securing higher margins will be a key theme. Multi-unit press technology and added on-line facilities, such as die-cutting and coating, will show how single pass production provides a route to profit.

And printers can also take the opportunity to measure up the potential of digital printing, Direct Imaging (DI) and conventional offset on the one stand.

“Although there will be presses galore it will be as much the affects of the unseen software and workflow as the mighty metal monsters that turns heads,” says Jim Todd, sales director of Heidelberg UK. “There will be about 19 presses on show including three webs and 16 sheetfed presses. These take in B1 to SRA3 conventional offset, Direct Imaging and digital printing solutions.”

CIP 4 will come of age, marrying up business solutions with prepress, press and postpress production using the open Job Definition Format and Page Definition Format to form one seamless whole. Prinect is Heidelberg’s name for a burgeoning range of workflow packages. Prinance, the company’sMIS solution, will be launched at Birmingham, a solution that will take real life production data into the reckoning when estimating and invoicing.

The prepress to press closed loop integration is now well established and it has enhanced quality and improved productivity as machines are automatically and accurately preset without manual intervention. On press ImageControl spectrophotometry, measuring print, not colour bars, takes print to a new level of quality.

Calibration, control and coating

Heidelberg at IPEX will be promoting its process calibration service – an expert advisory team who can now visit user sites to ensure that the print colour management is right. They do this by calibrating processes, ensuring that the equipment footprints provide the standards, not the intermediate media, such as film or plates.

Steve Cavey, marketing manager – large format, says: “Another means of control comes with bringing more processes in-house. The Speedmaster SM 102-12P 12-colour perfector will be shown operating with CutStar, a reel-to-sheet feeder, which allows printers to buy paper more cheaply and to print to a wider range of formats. Multi-unit presses are themselves a means of producing more finished print and the greatest range of configurations in one pass. These have been the hot sellers of the last 12 months.”

The dedicated in-line die-cutter will be shown on the Speedmaster SM 52, a press which also has a coating option so is ideal for lightweight packaging as well as commercial operations like CD production and greetings cards.

Coating is almost a standard today on Speedmaster CD straight printing presses. Often two or three coating units are added but space has restricted the show machines to just one tower per press. Shown in prototype as a packaging press at Drupa the straight printing CD 74-5LX will be shown in commercial version which gives it the same plate format as its perfecting brother the SM 74.

“The CD 74’s flexibility, speed of make-ready (with Preset as a standard) and especially the range of stocks it can handle, is astonishing,” says Mr Cavey. “We will be demonstrating the press on stand and is likely to be a popular show. Regard it as a must see this time round. A larger format CD 102-6LX, and six-colour is now the standard UK configuration for B1 straight presses, will also be on show. “

Numbering and perforating is shown in line on a Printmaster QM 46-2, completing the picture of more value added on press, from top to bottom of the range. Other lower cost equipment includes the Printmaster 74-2P (an entry level B2 press available in up to four colours), an SM 52-2 and a Printmaster GTO 52-2P.

Direct to press imaging – DI

On the Direct Imaging front there is the latest, fifth generation B3 machine, the QM DI 46-4 Pro with enhanced feeder which allows two pass production for up to eight colour printing. Its big bother the SM 74 DI is shown in five-colour perfecting configuration with a coating and varnishing unit and, demonstrating that DI and digital printing can work in tandem, it will be demonstrated with the popular NexPress 2100 colour the Digimaster 9110 black and white digital printing lines.

The three machines will each produce work that is ideal for their specific technology and the pages will then joined up and finished in line on the Digimaster. Spare NexPress and Digimaster units will give customers a closer look underneath the bonnet, something that was impossible when NexPress was shown in prototype at Drupa. Since then there have been many enhancements and upgrades and at IPEX it is a commercially available product with a beta track record and a price tag, too. It joins the must see list for visitors interested in all matters digital. Digimaster technology has not stood still and with the data processing market in mind it will be seen with reel feed and double stacker options.

Web-wise units of Sunday 2000 and 4000 heatset technology will be on show as will its coldset cousin, the Mainstream. It is a gapless bonanza.

• Environmental issues and waste will also be hot topics in hall 8.

We look forward to meeting you at IPEX 2002.

Heidelberg Graphic Equipment Ltd
658 Church Street
Richmond 3121
Victoria, Australia

Ph: +61-3-9205 4111
Fax: +61-3-9205 4211

www.au.heidelberg.com