Members of a specialist Activity Group within PrintCity, including two paper manufacturing giants, pooled their expertise and resource into an industry-wide Roll Diameter Project. The investigation looked at the wide-ranging impacts across the whole value chain, both for suppliers and customers, of paper roll sizes.
It comes as web offset printers across the globe look at ways of increasing efficiency and saving costs, part of which may involve investing in new or modernising existing presses.
PrintCity’s research has been detailed in a White Paper covering paper making logistics, the press room, paper mills, transport, roll storage and in-house handling and pasters. There was even a cost-calculator provided.
One element of the research looked at the major impacts of changing the size of a roll diameter – from 50 to 60inches.
The key results were:
Principal advantages of moving to a 60inch (1500mm) roll
· 31% fewer rolls to handle, store and strip
· 31% fewer splices to prepare
· 31% fewer roll changes, associated waste and web break risk
Principal disadvantages
Higher investment costs because all related equipment must be sized
for the larger dimension and 44% greater roll weight:
* Paper mill trimming efficiency, handling, rewinding and wrapping lines may need to be substantially upgraded to allow widespread availability of larger roll sizes.
* Logistics required to handle and store rolls at paper mill, in transit and at printer.
* More robust pasters with larger dimensions and automated roll loading.
* In some cases, more expensive or larger cores will be required.
Other variables included operating hours, manning levels, number of pasters, run lengths, variety of paper types and local logistics
Project Leader Andy Keil, of MEGTEC, said: “Everybody involved understands that the economic viability of potentially switching to larger roll diameters in the short to medium term will need careful assessment because of the investment required. There will be different economics in terms of potential savings for commercial printers, wide web width newspapers and single-width newspaper operations but we know that there could be individual savings up to € 40,000 per year.”
Mr. Keil added: “Our study has thrown up some useful findings of high value across the industry, but anybody contemplating a change should still investigate the various options themselves. Take a long, hard look from the trees where it all starts, to the bin where it will all end.”
Rainer Kuhn, Managing Director of PrintCity, said: “This is such an important issue for the industry that it needs the widest possible discussion – and we would welcome more feedback.”
The study has been carried out through PrintCity’s Publishing, Commercial & Web Activity Group and has been made available to industry specialists and at shows, such as Ifra and to more than 7,000 web-offset printers across the world via the Webline magazine produced by PrintCity.
Key contributions came from UPM, MAN Roland, MEGTEC, with technical support from Eurografica and Sonoco-Alcore. Another paper maker, Sappi, has also joined the project.
