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Costing Out Wider Presses
June 30, 2008

Today marks the official open house and rededication of manroland U.S. headquarters. But the real action took place Tuesday last week, as commercial and package printers converged on the press maker's Westmont, IL base for an up-close look at a new large-format press, a six-unit 56-inch HiPrint 900 sheetfed, and an examination of the economics behind the move to large format printing. 
Significantly, the press and its maker were rebranded at drupa--all one word, all lower case, distancing the company from its former parent, Germany's MAN AG. They make big city buses and generators, etc. (The o in manroland runs in PMS302 blue in case you're wondering.)
The conversation on  the economics of large format work engaged one of its star practitioners, David Kornbau, VP operations at Strine Printing of York, PA. His firm departed the relentless rut of 40-inch competition by moving into large format presses. Also in on the conversation, through panels, presentations and onsite equipment, were manroland's partners--Kodak, which installed a Magnus VLF (for very large format) platesetter right next to the 900 ; Prism, which showed a live demo of its management system integrated to manroland's printnet press systems; Albo, which put a jogger-skid turned next to the press; and a large-format Wohlenburg cutter. Also onhand were Bobst, which at drupa announced a program to integrate its stamping and diecutting devices to manroland and EskoArtwork workflow; and MBO, which makes the large format folders that can fold the big sheets.  .
manroland demo'd a half-dozen 4-color runs using 100-lb. Appleton Coated cover and Toyo inks.  The first job, using Kodak Prinergy workflow to create 175-lpi plates on a the Magnus VLF 2.1-meter platesetter, was printed at 14,000 sph on 39 x 55-in. glossy stock with Toyo Inks. 
Brad Keller, VP with St. Joseph Packaging in Missouri, said the 900 was "very impressive. We have a 6-year-old 900, and we're especially interested in the Prindor inline foiling." St. Joe's specializes in folding cartons for high-end, retail products. Keller was referring to the system across from the 900 installed on a 6-unit HiPrint 700. The cold-foiling Prindor prints a high-tack ink in the first unit, then impresses a foil roll against it to leave a deposit of metallic or holographic foiling. The second unit takes up the spent foil. Subsequent units can then overprint process colors to create spectacular effects.
Strine Printing's Kornbau was a real spark plug in a panel group on large format. His company has four 900 presses--two 56-inch, one 65-inch. with integrated UV coating and one 73-inch. Kornbau said Strine avoids the wait time for large-format paper, and cuts cost, by sheeting most of its materials in-house. His firm has also moved into litho-laminating liner sheets to corrugated, as well as embedding samples and memorablia into collector cards. "We have to stay on the leading edge of technology in our market," Kornbau says. "We're not looking over our shoulder, just moving ahead." 
The economics of large format printing were presented live--the 56-inch sheets split into the approximate equivalent of two 40-inch sheets by a slitting wheel at delivery. Some compelling pricing/costing calculations cooked up through the Prism management information system showed the different in profitability with a 56 versus a 40 inch production platform. We asked Kodak's Mark Wilton if the push to large format commercial print is just so much spin, or is it gaining ground with printers--he averred that it was. Likewise MBO's reps, who said that sales of folders for large format sheets wereaccelerating significantly.
 

Posted by Bill Esler on June 30, 2008 | Comments (0)