Super Size, Super Performance
Premiere at drupa 2008: Heidelberg will present its new flagship
model of the Speedmaster series - the XL 162. Its somewhat smaller
sister, the XL 145, will also be seeing the light of day at that
time. Packaging, commercial and publishing printers have long
awaited the large-format machines made by Heidelberg.
Heidelberg took its time before entering the world of large-format sheetfed offset printing - in formats 6 and 7b, meaning a sheet width of up to 63.8 inches (162 centimeters). Several factors spoke for entering at this point in time: Changes on the market (the branch's consolidation process, for example), Heidelberg's efforts to play a larger role in packaging printing and, last but not least, technical factors.
"It was only with the technological advances made in the past years that the time was really ripe for the large format at Heidelberg," emphasizes Ralph Gumbel, director of product management for the Speedmasters
XL 145 and XL 162. Gumbel lists the fully automatic plate change and the automatic washup system for blankets, the computer-to-plate technology, advanced solutions in workflow as well as a simpler data handling, as examples. "The developments in prepress were especially decisive," he adds. In addition, the market has also reached an "interesting size."
Worldwide, there are currently around 3,000 printing presses in these format classes in operation in the field of offset. About a half of capacity is dedicated to printing packaging. Large machines, which allow for a lot of usage per sheet, are well-suited for this application, because the demand for folding boxes is enormous in some branches: Packaging for well-known detergent brands in Germany and Europe, for example, are printed with runs in the two-digit million range. The manufacturers of cereals (cornflakes, bran flakes, rice puffs and muesli, etc.) even need significantly more than that. And the world's largest tobacco companies have umpteen million cigarette boxes printed each year.
Workhorse for magazines, catalogues and books
The largeformat Heidelberg presses are also of interest to publishing and industrial commercial printers, for manufacturing high-quality journals, magazines, catalogues or books with 48 pages or more for example. "The Heidelberg News would be a classical application," said Gumbel's colleague, Reinecke. It is a familiar example: A run of 130,000 copies in four languages with an issue breadth of roughly 64 pages - that makes more than eight million pages per issue, all printed with the highest quality in offset; with four issues that is over 33 million pages per year.
These types of jobs are most the rewarding for the largest Speedmaster models. The Speedmaster XL 145 and Speedmaster XL 162 are a logical further development for Heidelberg: Heidelberg pioneers new territory without reinventing the wheel in the process. The Speedmaster CD 74 and particularly the Speedmaster XL 105 presented at the last drupa, as well as a row of further detailed innovations, formed the foundation for the new Speedmaster generation. "The XL 145 and XL 162 build off Heidelberg's tried-and-true technological concepts," Gumbel underscores. Much of what accounts for the unusual productivity of both the large models has already been proving itself in the Speedmaster series for years. This creates the security that even the very first machines in summer 2008 will come onto the market already fully perfected. The first sales agreements were signed as early as the spring of 2006 at the Ipex in Birmingham, and now there are already a score of orders. In terms of cars, if you switch to the larger size class from the same manufacturer, you will be able to orient yourself quickly. This is true of Heidelberg machines as well. Those who know how to operate the Speedmaster CD 74 or XL 105 will have a particularly easy time of switching to the Speedmaster XL 145 or XL 162. Even printers who need to retrain themselves on a Speedmaster should not encounter any trouble. That is because the comprehensive operating concept at the bottom of all control components is designed to be user-friendly. All elements are built in the same way, follow a unified logic and make operating the machine that much easier for users.
You can download the complete article on the top right-hand side.
Heidelberg took its time before entering the world of large-format sheetfed offset printing - in formats 6 and 7b, meaning a sheet width of up to 63.8 inches (162 centimeters). Several factors spoke for entering at this point in time: Changes on the market (the branch's consolidation process, for example), Heidelberg's efforts to play a larger role in packaging printing and, last but not least, technical factors.
"It was only with the technological advances made in the past years that the time was really ripe for the large format at Heidelberg," emphasizes Ralph Gumbel, director of product management for the Speedmasters
XL 145 and XL 162. Gumbel lists the fully automatic plate change and the automatic washup system for blankets, the computer-to-plate technology, advanced solutions in workflow as well as a simpler data handling, as examples. "The developments in prepress were especially decisive," he adds. In addition, the market has also reached an "interesting size."
Worldwide, there are currently around 3,000 printing presses in these format classes in operation in the field of offset. About a half of capacity is dedicated to printing packaging. Large machines, which allow for a lot of usage per sheet, are well-suited for this application, because the demand for folding boxes is enormous in some branches: Packaging for well-known detergent brands in Germany and Europe, for example, are printed with runs in the two-digit million range. The manufacturers of cereals (cornflakes, bran flakes, rice puffs and muesli, etc.) even need significantly more than that. And the world's largest tobacco companies have umpteen million cigarette boxes printed each year.
Workhorse for magazines, catalogues and books
The largeformat Heidelberg presses are also of interest to publishing and industrial commercial printers, for manufacturing high-quality journals, magazines, catalogues or books with 48 pages or more for example. "The Heidelberg News would be a classical application," said Gumbel's colleague, Reinecke. It is a familiar example: A run of 130,000 copies in four languages with an issue breadth of roughly 64 pages - that makes more than eight million pages per issue, all printed with the highest quality in offset; with four issues that is over 33 million pages per year.
These types of jobs are most the rewarding for the largest Speedmaster models. The Speedmaster XL 145 and Speedmaster XL 162 are a logical further development for Heidelberg: Heidelberg pioneers new territory without reinventing the wheel in the process. The Speedmaster CD 74 and particularly the Speedmaster XL 105 presented at the last drupa, as well as a row of further detailed innovations, formed the foundation for the new Speedmaster generation. "The XL 145 and XL 162 build off Heidelberg's tried-and-true technological concepts," Gumbel underscores. Much of what accounts for the unusual productivity of both the large models has already been proving itself in the Speedmaster series for years. This creates the security that even the very first machines in summer 2008 will come onto the market already fully perfected. The first sales agreements were signed as early as the spring of 2006 at the Ipex in Birmingham, and now there are already a score of orders. In terms of cars, if you switch to the larger size class from the same manufacturer, you will be able to orient yourself quickly. This is true of Heidelberg machines as well. Those who know how to operate the Speedmaster CD 74 or XL 105 will have a particularly easy time of switching to the Speedmaster XL 145 or XL 162. Even printers who need to retrain themselves on a Speedmaster should not encounter any trouble. That is because the comprehensive operating concept at the bottom of all control components is designed to be user-friendly. All elements are built in the same way, follow a unified logic and make operating the machine that much easier for users.
You can download the complete article on the top right-hand side.
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