Katherine O'Brien Blog

PrintCity drupa preview offers insights from manroland web, Océ & more

  

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Last week, I joined about 60 of my colleagues at the PrintCity Pre-drupa International Media Event held near Munich. We heard the latest news from manroland web systems GmbH, Océ,  Kurz, m-Real, Eltosch, Procemex, Sappi, Trelleborg and UPM.  You can find OutputLinks’ previous PrintCity 2012 coverage here.  In general, the presenters confirmed several of my fearless drupa predictions: We can expect to hear a lot more packaging and printed electronic news as well as efficiency driven innovations.

PrintCity was originally conceived 14 years ago to demonstrate workflow connectivity/compatibility among the various companies. Since then, the alliance, which has a formal corporate structure, has collaborated on projects, publications and seminars. But drupa remains a key focus.

“Every four years we return to drupa, our birthplace, to be a major visitor attraction,” says David Stamp, PrintCity’s Director of Marketing & Communications. “For 2012 our theme is Print: Seen! Lean & Green and we have four PrintCity Hot Topic visitor attractions planned for our large shared presence in Hall 6.”

PrintCity also has some special events on tap, the largest of which is the Lean & Green International Environmental Conference on May 10, during drupa. Readers can pre-register for this event now.

PrintCity’s drupa 2012 hot topics are:

• Digital & Offset Printing.
• Value Added Printing & Packaging.
• Tune-Up Your Web Press.
• Lean & Green Opportunities.

Here are some highlights from the February 2012 PrintCity event:

‘We’re Back’ Says manroland Web Press Division

“First of all, we are back,” stressed Peter Kuisle, Sales, Service, and Marketing Director of manroland websystems GmbH.  Kuisle said that the web offset division’s new owner, German conglomerate L. Possehl & Co. GmbH, is fully committed to the market. As the company moves forward with its strategic plans for manroland's web division “We’re talking about decades, not months or years” says Kuisle. “That’s very important.”

Management news: Uwe Lüders, the Possehl Group’s chairman of the board, heads the management team. Kuisle, Vice President Sales at manroland for many years, heads the service and sales divisions. Dieter Betzmeier leads the technical division. Franz Gumpp is responsible for the production and purchasing division. Dirk Rauh heads the commercial division.  Dr. Daniel Raffler is in charge of human resources. Manroland websystems currently has about 1,500 employees.

Drupa 2012 highlights: Look for autoprint components which support pushbutton press operation; a new operating concept for newspaper and commercial presses; pressupdate (upgrades and reconfiguring) and rebuilding strategies as well as innovations from the printnet (workflow) and printservices (maintenance and support) divisions. Featured presses include newspaper press series COLORMAN e:line and the LITHOMAN S for 96-page heatset production. The vendor reported two recent orders for the latter press.

Digital update: The first fruits of the manroland/Océ collaboration announced in December 2010 will be seen at the Océ Production Printing Customer Experience in Poing  (May 7-11, 2012). It’s Océ’s new JetSteam 4300 monochrome web-fed press with manroland’s book folder. As Mary Van Meter reported in News and Tech, manroland confirmed it will move ahead with its planned alliance with Océ to develop a digital printing system.

Other: It’s early days yet under the new ownership. Kuisle noted the company had just gotten its tax number for invoicing purposes. The web and sheetfed divisions will be alongside each other in drupa’s Hall 6; until we hear otherwise, they remain part of the PrintCity alliance.

Océ: Full-Speed Ahead for Full-Color

Moving on Up to Inkjet: Océ’s new ColorStream 3700 is positioned as one step beyond the ColorStream 3500. It’s the highest speed model in the Océ ColorStream Twin series and it features the same technology we’ve seen on the 3500. But the ColorStream 3700  offers a process speed of 100 metres per minute with a print and paper width of 540mm (20.25 inches). That translates to 675 A4 (716 lettersized) impressions per minute for a single unit or in a twin configuration, 1350 A4 impressions per minute (1,432 letter sized) for monthly volumes of up to 46 million A4 pages (43 million letter sized).  HeadSafe technology helps prevent nozzle clogging and minimizes lengthy purging processes. Users reportedly can easily transition between monochrome-only and full-color printing. Because manual cleaning is eliminated Océ says the 3700 permits a direct transition to full-color inkjet and vice versa.

See the Showroom: Océ Production Printing Customer Experience Center in Poing (near Munich) is now open. Vistors to the 4000-sqm facility can see their own applications running on high-speed inkjet- and toner-based systems, as well as get a glimpse at R&D projects. During drupa, Océ will host a special customer event from May 7-11 to showcase the new JetStream 4300 web-fed press with a book folder from manroland.

Compact Color Footprint: Announced in December 2011, Océ's JetStream 1900 runs at 127 mpm (417 fpm) in “performance” mode, which translates to 1,714 A4 (1,818 letter) images per minute, at 600 x 480 dpi resolution and multilevel dot modulation. For top quality requirements, the premium mode enables printing at 1,200 dpi perceived image quality with 100 mpm (326 fpm) or 1,350 A4 (1,428 letter) images per minute. Applications include transpromo, direct mail and short-run newspapers.

Kurz: Eye Catching Offerings in Digital, Offset and Beyond

Konrad Kurz invented and patented the world's first vapor deposit stamping foil using real gold in 1931. The family-owned business remains a leader in traditional “fancy finishing,” but it has continued to adapt. Drupa highlights include metal effects for digital printing: First, the design is printed onto the substrate using toner or liquid toner, and then a Digital Metal foil (made of  a metallized lacquer layer and a PET carrier) is laminated onto the pre-printed material. Next the carrier foil is peeled off, thereby leaving behind the decorative layer on the pre-printed areas of the substrate. Digital printing follows and then varnishing if required. The Digital Metal foil is equally suitable for use with sheetfed or web-fed digital printing. It can be overprinted with UV or conventional digital printing toner.

Offset News:  On the sheetfed side, Kurz will feature Luxor/Alufin KPS-OP, a new cold foil for sheet-fed UV offset printing.

Design News: Kurz will show holographic continuous foils produced without recombination lines (seams). Previously designers were restricted to closely repeated patterns; now even large single-image designs can be produced. Also new: SB Aquadrops which “shows lenses as casually arranged water drops in a variety of shapes and sizes.” (It sounds like it combines some elements of a hologram and some elements of lenticular printing.)

Printed Electronics: PolyIC, a member of the Kurz Group, was founded in November 2003 as a joint venture between Leonhard Kurz Stiftung & Co. KG and Siemens AG. At drupa, Kurz will feature PolyLogo products (“Smart Objects”) that consist of thin, flexible and printed electronics such as sensors, batteries, displays and control logics. Kurz didn’t offer a lot of specifics at the PrintCity event—but nonetheless, I was intrigued and look forward to learning more about this division. It should be of particular interest to label printers.

More to Come

In Part 2, I’ll share the latest PrintCity news from Eltosch, m-real, Procemex, Sappi, Trelleborg and UPM.  Stay tuned!

In Closing

I hope my industry reviews prove of value to your professional interests and stimulate discussion.

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Thank you,