Situated at the southernmost coastal tip of Karnataka, Mangalore’s Prakash Offset recently hosted an open house event jointly with Heidelberg India. One of the biggest Heidelberg customers in India and an early adopter of Heidelberg presses, Prakash Offset has recently installed a 4-color Anicolor SX 52 press – its eighth press from Heidelberg in a bid to attend to growing short-run commercial printing jobs. With monsoon having already arrived in Mangalore, the coastal town was the perfect venue for a tech demo.
Heidelberg India led by general manager Peter Rego organized live demonstrations of the press at Prakash Offset. Heidelberg’s Saseendran Baskaran led the Prakash Offset’s operator team which completed five Monsoon brings open house to Mangalore
Heidelberg Anicolor at Prakash Offset jobs in about forty minutes with high quality output for everyone to see.
Inquisitive and demanding printers attending the open house from all over India were visibly satisfied with the results. The most outstanding claim of the Anicolor SX 52 press is its up to 50% shorter make-ready time along
with 90% less paper waste which, going by the demos, seemed credible.
The demo jobs were demanding in terms of proper color gamut representation but printed without a hitch. Interestingly, each job varied from the other in terms of artwork,
paper density and type of substrate
used. A variety of substrates were used, including 170 GSM art paper, 300 GSM art card, 250 GSM Natural Evolution paper and 300 GSM textured paper. Despite that, the changeover time was about seven minutes, even for jobs with heavy ink coverage.
Prakash Offset partner Anand Prabhu said that with short make- ready times and quick job execution, the new press would help the company to compete with digital printers. Installed in January 2014, the press has worked well, completing high quality short run print jobs quickly and efficiently.
Depending on the requirements, the Speedmaster SX 52 can be equipped with a variety of components such as an inking unit temperature control device, an ink zone calibration system, or Color Assistant Pro for optimizing ink pre- setting. The result is an impressively versatile and measurably productive press that paves the way for profits.
Heidelberg India organized an evening conference on the Anicolor press. Ashokan Krishnamoorthy called for a precise calibration between press and prepress along with implementation of color management for the right reproduction of print. Udo Fiebiger, the regional business manager in sheetfed solutions of Heidelberg who is based out of Bangkok explained the Anicolor printing process.
Anicolor technology
The anicolor inking unit is a zoneless short inking unit with dampening system. Straightforward operation quickly paves the way for uniform
inking without spending a lot of time
on settings. This reduces paper waste by up to 90% compared to machines with conventional inking units and is a cheerful solution for standardized printing. As paper has the biggest impact on the carbon footprint, this technology supports ecological printing in the long-term. An engraved screen roller located between the chamber blade and the inking form roller ensures extremely stable inking and thus reproducible quality at all times.
The Speedmaster SX 52 anicolor is produced, transported and delivered to the customer on a carbon-neutral basis. Reducing or completely eliminating the use of alcohol by equipping the press with special rollers in the dampening system and recommended peripherals makes another important contribution to ensuring environmentally friendly print production. The Anicolor innovation cuts the make-ready costs of offset printing in short print runs significantly, enabling optimum offset quality at cost-effective prices and with
the best possible green credentials.
Compared to a press with a conventional ink train, the benefits of Anicolor can be summed up as 90:50:50 – which means that the Anicolor inking unit technology results in 90% less paper waste, 50% shorter make-ready times, and 50% higher productivity. Thanks to fast and stable inking-up, OK sheets are often achieved within just ten sheets, and all this with optimum offset quality and user-friendliness. Over 1,200 printing units and more than 270 presses in the Speedmaster SM and SX 52 Anicolor series have now been installed globally according to Fiebiger.
Saseendran Baskaran highlighted the competitive running costs that printing companies could achieve after using the SX 52 for any considerable amount of time. Peter Rego dispelled all fears of a reducing demand for commercial printing by stating that the Indian printing industry is standing at the threshold of generating more printing than ever before. “Heidelberg is the only one- stop solutions provider for every printing need, and thus any printer who uses its presses and solutions can expect substantial savings over the years,” he claimed.
The open house attracted several big printers from key locations in India. Apart from the marketing gains for Heidelberg India, the overall enthusiasm of the printer delegates was notable. Events like these can be more frequent but of course innovative printers such as Prakash Offset are needed — their open- mindedness and a generosity of spirit giving delegates the run of their entire infrastructure and an insight to a new
way of printing.
