Manroland Sheetfed entering 'exciting' period

Manroland Sheetfed has said it is entering an "exciting" period for the company, following what it has described as an amazing first 100 days of ownership under Langley Holdings.

The press manufacturer is using Drupa to showcase a raft of innovations to its Roland 700 and 900 platforms as well as inline press enhancements including hybrid digital printing applications.

Describing its presence at the 2012 event as "a success in itself", given its recent troubles, Manroland said it was set to continue selling and developing its entire product line. The firm added that it would not discontinue certain press formats, despite the predictions of some industry commentators.

On display at Drupa is the company’s eight-colour Roland 700 HiPrint LV press, which it describes as a press designed to meet the demand for highly productive packaging converters.

Enhancements to the press due to be unveiled at Drupa include an increased top output speed from 16,000sph to 17,000sph and an inline foiler that offers up to 55% waste reduction of the cold foil.

Manroland has also developed a fully automatic non-stop system for the feeder of the HiPrint HS and DirectDrive, while the integrated print quality measuring and regulation system, InlineColorPilot, is now capable of controlling and adjusting the register automatically and also producing quality reports based on colorimetry (Lab values).

The press will also be equipped with the latest version of InlineInspector, which is available with one or four cameras, and is capable of checking the printed image of every single sheet against the PDF with 200dpi accuracy or down to 4pt text.

Amongst the manufacturer's other Drupa innovations is an inline hybrid digital print module to add variable print capability, for the printing of bar/matrix codes, names and text, to its offset presses.

The manufacturer has designed a patented suction cylinder and adapted the paper grippers to fit in the very tight space (<1mm) between the inkjet heads and the substrate. This enables integration of single or multiple inkjet printheads that are fixed to a print bar, which covers the entire printable sheet area.

Capable of 600dpi monochrome quality at 7,000sph or 300dpi output at 1,4000sph, the manufacturer has developed the technology with Atlantic Zeisser but said heads from other companies would also work, without limitations on format size or substrate capabilities.

The system has been developed for use with UV inks initially, and will be able to print on any substrate, coated or uncoated, and with glossy or silk finish, including eco-material or even plastics thanks to a low temperature, energy-efficient UV LED dryer from Eltosch/Hönle.

The development of the same printheads with water-based inks is in progress and will qualify the use of this hybrid technology for food packaging. According to Manroland Sheetfed executive vice president and board member Rafael Penñuela Torres, the hybrid printing module will not see commercially availability until the end of 2012 at the earliest.

Torres also outlined the company’s strategic partnership with Landa Corporation and its nano print technology, which will see Manroland develop digital products using Nanography.

Although Manroland said it should be possible to retrofit "one tower or an entire press" with the nano firepower, the first products will not be available until at least the end of 2013.

This article originally appeared at printweek.com