Heidelberg CEO Bernhard Schreier was up beat, positively beaming as he announced that the €800m
expansion of capacity, primarily to build the new XXL VLF sheetfed press, has
now been completed.
Two demonstration presses were put on show and a six-colour
was put through its quite remarkable paces without side panels (the two presses
are so new the side panels have yet to be finished).
It is a class act; here
we saw a 142cm wide machine, with 400 micron folding box board being thrashed
through at 15,000iph, complete with in-line varnishing. Any packaging printer
would be impressed, not only with this performance, but the supporting ancillaries,
full Prinect workflow and a new range of Suprasetter CTP systems able to make
35 thermal plates an hour.
Perfecting will be available at Drupa and the stock
range is from around 80gsm to perhaps 400-600 micron flute board, the maximum
press size is 162cm.
Jurgen Rautert,
head of Engineering and Marketing naturally is positive about the VLF’s future: "We have scaled up the Speedmaster XL105 and that press has been the most
successful debut machine we have ever launched. The XXL is coming to market
with this heritage."
And of course it is coming to market as a catch up machine,
joining MAN Roland and KBA in the VLF club. All three think the market can probably
sustain perhaps 3000 machines, which suggests either a tremendous scrap
brewing given the market has already absorbed 1300 presses, or they are being
cautious in their forecasts.
Heidelberg has staked €800m on winning the lion's
share of new orders, so it had better be right.
Yet there is
definitely a greater sense of market reality in the Heidelberg camp. Joerg
Bauer, worldwide head of Prinect acknowledged that few greenfield sites exist
any more for the adoption of JDF workflow systems, and he sees Prinect being
phased in.
"At Drupa visitors will see that Prinect has been
restructured into clear task orientated modules with a central
JDF server in which all production data would reside," says Bauer.
He adds that it will be
from here that the various operating units will draw data in real time along
with fully accredited independent MIS systems.
Heidelberg still
seems to be press centric in the sense that it appears to view Prinect’s greatest
strengths as being primarily a tool to speed production and introduce new levels of
efficiency in production management. "Printing by numbers," Rautert
describes it as, and adds:, "We have also introduced Intelliset which I believe
optimises the fastest way to the OK sheet."
This system is dynamic in the sense
that it can monitor the ergonomic movements of an operator around the press and
marshal them into the most efficient order of production. An example would be
to examine the upcoming print queue to suggest what would be the most efficient
order to produce the work.
Saving a minute out of five on the shop floor is all very good, but to an outsider, given that
Prinect is a PDF based system, surely its greatest strengths would be its
potential to address the opportunity to take days out of the time it takes a
customer to get the job ready to send to the printer. Proofing, pagination, time
to delivery are all tasks a print buyer can carry out if access to Prinect is permitted
by the printer.
One idea with considerable
potential Heidelberg will be showing at drupa is an extensively revised Press
Control Centre. Incorporated is a flat panel TV, the size of the maximum sheet
the press can print, this is connected directly to the Prinect control
server. Colour separations, ink zones per colour, press status during make ready
in real time are examples of what can be displayed. Displaying the effects of
varying the printing order of colours would be an excellent way to use it.
Also being
unveiled at drupa will be a Speedmaster 75 XL version; in effect completing the
family range of these high performance presses. Such a machine adds complexity
to the Heidelberg range of presses, but it does mean Heidelberg does have the
market well and truly covered.
Perhaps it may also be a signal that presses like the
GTO and the Anicolor could well be destined to be built under licence elsewhere.
The entry level folder built in China has been a great success and this could
be a spur.
