First-In-Class Installations

When Vertis Communications, a company with more than 100 U.S. locations and some 5,800 employees, needed additional capacity to handle peak production associated with new and current campaigns for clients, it installed North America's first Xeikon 6000 digital color press in its Monroe Township, NJ facility.

“The Xeikon 6000 was added to complement our existing 5000 platform,” says Steve Flood, senior VP, digital operations at Vertis, which provides targeted advertising, media and marketing solutions to retail and consumer services companies. “The workflow in a multi-press environment fit seamlessly, and we benefited from the new toner and higher speeds.”

Installed 18 months ago, the press is producing fully variable digital color output. “Almost all of the campaigns are continuity programs with regular execution schedules,” explains Flood. “We've had particular success with complex match mailings, welcome kits and creative formats outside the 11x17 sheetfed realm.

“We believe Xeikon technology offers the most creative flexibility, best workflow, cost and speed/productivity for those devices offering graphic-arts quality,” he notes.

GAM also spoke with six other early adopters. (Read about Direct Group's new Océ JetStream 2200 on pp.14 and 27.)

Personix, a company that produces about 1.4 billion print impressions per year, was the first to install an InfoPrint 5000, in its Houston facility, this past November. The new technology from the IBM-Ricoh joint venture is helping retain customers printing in black-and-white and wanted to add color for higher impact—and it's also attracting new customers looking to produce transpromo materials.

“As the technology matured, the price points came down so we could offer color for just a percentage above black and white,” says Don Mathis, executive sponsor of printing solutions at Personix, a unit of Fiserv that provides information to the financial services and other markets. “We've been doing digital color printing for about five years in certain verticals, but in the transactional print verticals, we were really held back by the pricing.”

Personix installed the InfoPrint 5000 full-color continuous forms inkjet printing system in a tandem duplex configuration. The model, with a 20.4´´ width, prints to 209.9 fpm. “Clients think the color will create a value-added appeal to their customers, but probably to a greater extent, they're going to be able to add client-specific marketing messages and advertising to transactional documents,” says Mathis. “I think within the next year, we're going to see a pretty healthy migration over to color.”

MicroPage, a commercial printer in New York City, is attracting new business thanks to the high-quality printing it can produce on the Canon imagePRESS C7000VP digital press installed last March—also a first in the U.S. The firm had been producing quality pieces on its Heidelberg Quickmaster DI offset press for 10 years and decided that digital quality had reached a level where it would complement offset.

It's creating event materials and multi-page books for high-end clients such as Miramax, Parsons The New School for Design and pro photographers. MicroPage produced two versions of 500 4/4 program guides for Channel 13 TV with same-day turnaround.

With quality on digital and offset being similar, the company can produce the same job on both printers. “We did 25,000 postcards for an Oscar party, and we did the first 800 on the imagePRESS for a next-day turnaround, and then we did the balance on the Heidelberg,” says director Brian Boyajian.

Florida Trade Graphics (FTG) is attracting new business and expanding services with high-quality, high-gloss print. The firm is a large, trade-only printer in South Florida that has been operating offset equipment for 22 years. For the last five years, president Dennis McNaney has been looking for a digital press that could provide quality similar to offset.

The company officially went digital this past December—installing the first NexPress S3000 in the U.S. FTG is the only trade printer in Florida with this production press that delivers 100 A4 ppm. (See GAM Feb '08, p.16.) Now, the print provider can offer high-quality short runs, variable-data printing and unique applications on materials such as Tyvek and water-resistant substrates. The firm has output many personalized jobs for the auto, travel and health care industries. One job for a restaurant involved producing 500 to 5,000 menus for each of its 15 locations: each version with its own address, map and localized pricing.

In addition, a NexGlosser unit is enhancing the digitally printed output. “This particular press has a super high-gloss coating that is better than UV,” notes McNaney.

Behind many creative insert solutions is the handiwork of Inserts, Inc. The Chicago-based company provides specialty binding and fulfillment services to magazine publishers, commercial printers and ad agencies. The firm enclosed 3D glasses into the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition last year and assembled more than 2 million lenticular covers onto the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Recently, the company decided to expand its creative solutions by installing a HP Indigo press 5500—the first one of its kind in the Midwest. “I think it's important to have the latest technology because it gives us the ability to offer our customers the latest features,” says CEO Frank Puisis.

With the new digital press, Inserts can now show existing and potential customers 4-color samples of its latest innovations. “Having an HP [Indigo] 5500 digital press enables us for the first time to make full-color 'working' samples of our proprietary products,” explains Puisis.

It also enables Inserts to produce variable-data printing. Inserts created 300,000 color belly bands with barcodes and other variable information that wrap around pharmaceutical product packages. “Every piece had to be unique,” says Puisis. “The technology has allowed us to do that.” 

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: Offset Firsts

New sheetfed and web printers, too, have enjoyed North American debut installations of new offset presses over the past 18 months. Taylor Corp., North Mankato, MN, became the first U.S. printer to incorporate Heidelberg’s Anicolor technology into its pressroom last fall. The $1.7-billion mega commercial/trade printer employs 15,000 and is made up of more than 85 companies in 22 states and eight countries. The company is the first in the U.S. to incorporate the short-train, keyless system that Heidelberg developed with Sun Chemical. Taylor installed four Speedmaster SM 52 presses with Anicolor, a zoneless inking unit with dampening system that won a 2007 InterTech Technology Award.

“The biggest advantage of Anicolor over traditional presses is color consistency,” says Craig Krone, Taylor's VP of information and technologies for personalized business products. Previously available only for process CMYK colors, Heidelberg introduced a 10-color version of an Anicolor SM press at Tokyo's IGAS show last fall. 

KBA reports that the Nielsen Co., Florence, KY (near Cincinnati), an RR Donnelley subsidiary, has taken delivery of the world’s first 16-unit Rapida 105: six printing units, a coater and two dryers—a total of nine units—before the automatically convertible perfecting unit, with a further six printing units, a coater and double extended delivery to follow. Its total length is around 102 ft. including the console. Nielsen’s sheetfed equipment supports a web press environment when short-run, 4-color is needed to compliment projects—brochure covers, test runs, digital shells, etc. The 172,000-sq.ft. plant employs 370 people and uses full and half size web offset presses, as well as full and half size sheetfeds.

Also, Color Spectrum Network, a high-end manufacturer of printed folding cartons located in Marietta, GA, has installed a specially configured, 8-color KBA Rapida 105 41´´ sheetfed press with coater/dryer/dryer/coater, extended delivery and plastics packaging kit in an all-UV environment. The press was delivered in June 2007 and was fully operational by last August. Only 1% of printers worldwide have this type of configuration, reports the firm’s president and founder, Gilbert Bonilla. “This UV press sets us apart from the majority of our competitors as a result of the double coater with eight colors,” he says.

The press features a corona treatment unit on the front end for plastics printing—the first press in North America with this option. The inline corona treatment unit is a new Rapida 105 feature that stabilizes plastic dyne levels (a measure of static electricity) prior to printing for better ink adhesion.

Bonilla says because the company targets high-end cosmetic and confectionary markets, it needs to print with metallic inks, which the press allows.

The minority-owned firm has invested almost $30 million in new equipment in the last five years; it operates a 145,000-sq.ft. facility and employs 110. A new 16,000-sq. ft. pressroom, assembled with humidity and temperature control, accommodates the new press plus growth for another.

Also, in January, Edison Litho & Printing, North Bergen, NJ, purchased its second 81´´ KBA Rapida 205 6-color sheetfed press with coater and custom plastics package—making it the only printer in North America to operate two of the largest presses in the world in the same facility. Edison is one of the largest large-format litho printers in the Northeast. In addition, the firm also operates a Rapida 162 64´´ 6-color with aqueous coater, which was installed in January 2007. The newest 81´´ press will be delivered this coming spring.

Since installing the first Rapida 205, the world’s largest sheetfed press and winner of a prestigious GATF InterTech Award, Edison has had the machine on a 24-hour shift producing commercial printing, point-of-purchase, packaging, posters and retail signage. 

Web debuts, too 

Web printer Hi-Liter Graphics officially cut the ribbon on its new MAN Roland Euroman 4x4 press in its Burlington, WI plant this past November. Announced last spring, it marks the first such 32-page single-web configuration in North America. Installation began in late August 2007 with the first live job running on Oct. 28. At the 104,000-sq.ft. facility, 175 non-unionized employees produce short- to medium-run catalogs, directories, manuals, books, publications and marketing collateral. 

Euroman replaces the traditional, double-web 38´´ commercial web press with a more efficient single-web, four-unit design. With a 2:3:3 folder, it can produce 16-page quarter-folded products, 32-page quarter-folded products, 16-page tabloid products, 32-page digest products, as well as products with lower page counts. And it’s fast, producing periodicals in the collect mode at the rate of 35,000 copies per hour. With its quarter folder, it can run at the rate of 60,000 cph. (With an optional double quarter folder, speeds up to 70,000 cph can be attained.) 

GAM’s upcoming April cover will feature MetalFX on a web press at Transcontinental—also an industry first. — Mark Vruno