The eleventh Hunkeler Innovationdays at Lucerne is again the place to see innovative solutions for digital high performance printing and paper processing. The event has grown and with 80 exhibitors it will occupy the two new halls this time with the traditional DOXNET conference also being moved on site. With prepress, print and finishing, consumables and software all under one roof, over 40 innovative digital production solutions will be shown. Importantly, the event takes place when markets such as India are seeing investments in webfed high-speed inkjet and automated processing and converting for complete, intelligent and dynamic solutions.
What’s new at Innovationdays 2015?
There will be at least three or four new digital presses at the event and the solutions will overall present faster and more automated production. Hunkeler itself will show its dynamic laser cutting module which makes it possible to dynamically change the format of a product by changing the cutting length, as well as the perforation and laser punching (or cutting or paper engraving) as well as stacking on the fly.
Heidelberg’s digital print solutions
Heidelberg will show solutions for the production of digitally printed soft cover brochures of high quality. HEI Flexibility is an answer to the trend to smaller runs and to flexibility with the finishing of digitally and conventionally printed jobs. Together with its partners, Hunkeler, ATS, Müller Martini, and Polar, Heidelberg will show a flexible machine network where a complete digitally printed brochure is produced live and bound with hot melt glue and a cover and 3- side trimmed in a single workflow. All units involved use the same barcode system in order to make sure that the product is compiled and produced correctly.
The system consists of a Hunkeler UW6-unwinder, the cross cutter CS6-I directly connected to the Heidelberg Stahlfolder TH 56 in-line, folding and transferring sheets as collected piles to an ATS FAB A 820 bundler. Barcodes ensure every set is completely collated in the bundler. Then the folded signatures are brought together with the cover on the latest Müller Martini perfect binder and bound as a complete brochure and 3-side trimmed on the Polar BC-330. The Müller Martini perfect binder represents a world premiere shown to the trade experts at the Hunkeler Innovationdays for the first time.
KBA’s new RotaJET L and VL inkjet off the reel
The new, highly flexible KBA RotaJET L digital press platform will dominate Koenig & Bauer’s presence at the Hunkeler Innovationdays following the debut of an operational KBA RotaJET 76 inkjet web press in 2013. The modular RotaJET L platform is now available in five different web widths from 895 to 1,300 mm (35.2 to 51-inch) and can be upgraded to the maximum printing width and color content at a later date. Additionally, it can be flexibly configured to suit all fundamental application areas in the high-volume digital printing segment. Retrofitting future generations of printing heads is also possible. Users can thus react quickly and economically to changing demands without needing to invest in an entirely new kit.
Along with the new 89-130 series based on the RotaJET L platform and the RotaJET 76 (maximum printing width 781 mm or 30.7 inches) unveiled at drupa 2012 for book, commercial, magazine and newspaper printing, KBA has built the RotaJET VL inkjet range with a printing width of over 1.60 metre (5.2 feet) or even over 2 metre (6.6 feet) for industrial applications. The prominent press manufacturer benefits from its wealth of know-how in web guidance and substrate handling accumulated over many years. The partnership between HP and KBA announced at the end of September 2014 for the development and production of a digital press for corrugated printing is based on Koenig & Bauer’s unique experience in precision mechanical engineering for a host of print applications and processes.
Ricoh to showcase Pro VC60000Â
Ricoh will showcase in action the recently announced Pro VC60000 at Hunkeler Innovationdays 2015. Described as a game changer that will set a new benchmark for quality in its class, the Pro VC60000 has created some buzz amongst analysts and production print professionals. At Ricoh’s stand, visitors will also be able to see the brand new color cut sheet presses, as well as the latest addition to Ricoh’s TotalFlow solutions range – BatchBuilder.
Screen
Screen will again exhibit its latest highspeed TruePress inkjet at the Innovationdays event. The TruePress Jet 520 is in fact the most successfully sold and installed inkjet press with combined sales by its OEM partner Ricoh and by Screen itself.
Xerox
Just after the last Hunkeler event in 2013, Xerox announced its acquisition of Impika – a small but innovative engineering company that always attracted enormous attention at Innovationdays. While this gives Impika’s high speed inkjet presses global marketing clout, for Xerox it filled an important space in high speed webfed printing where the company was late and that its own developed ‘crayon press’ still needed time. We look forward to seeing either the 511 mm wide Impika Evolution 4- color press which runs at 254 metres a minute with capability to handle paper from 60 to 160 gsm width, or the Impika Compact or Reference presses that run at half the speed.
IBIS and CanonÂ
IBIS will show its latest smart-binder SB-3 ‘Plus HS’ on the Canon stand, running in-line with a high-speed webfed inkjet printer and web cutter. Two innovative new smart-binder features have been developed in response to customer demand to run variable-data jobs with dynamic booklet thickness or page-count changing continually. To be shown for the first time at Lucerne, the ASA-100 Automated Stitch Adjust system enables the smart-binder stitcher to continually and automatically adjust the wire staples to suit the thickness of each booklet being stitched. This system has been created to handle complex, variabledata jobs in which the number of pages in the booklets is constantly changing. The smart-binder SB-3’s unique and patented ISG cold-glue process, as a high-quality binding alternative to wire stitching will also be demonstrated.
The IBIS SBS-100 Sheet Buffer module installed in between the web cutter and the smart-binder, receives printed sheets at a constant rate from the web cutter (defined by the printer speed of 127 metres a minute), stores these sheets and feeds them at variable rates into the smart-binder depending on the number of sheets in each booklet.
Despite this growth, the Hunkeler Innovationdays has retained its compact scope, so the event provides a deep and complete industry overview. The event is focused on integrated total solutions and practical applications, so visitors become acquainted with the latest developments in all areas of production and finishing processes for digitally manufactured printed products.
