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Kennesaw, GA—Oct. 1, 2009—Heidelberg USA announces the following new product installations:

Walker Printing Takes Care of Business with Speedmaster SM 52 Anicolor

The newest addition to Walker Printing’s pressroom lineup is a Speedmaster SM 52 4-color press with Anicolor inking, and it has made all the difference, according to company president Taylor Blackwell. Installed three months ago and in full production for two, the SM 52 Anicolor replaced an existing Speedmaster 74 6-color, a Heidelberg Printmaster QM 46-2, and a digital press.

The contrast between the Anicolor press and the digital machine it replaced could not be more stark, said Blackwell, who maintains he was paying substantially more in click charges on the digital press than he spends on plates for the Anicolor machine. And the differences extend to service, as well; according to Walker, the three-year coverage he gets with Heidelberg Systemservice 36 package beats fixed monthly costs on the digital machine hands down. In terms of performance, he adds, “Makeready on the Anicolor machine is ridiculously short; we’re up to color in under 25 sheets.” As a consequence, Walker Printing is able to turn out work faster and more efficiently than ever before, including magazine covers, postcards, brochures, and a range of commercially printed products. Unlike its digital predecessor, the Anicolor machine can handle run lengths that are “all over the place,” Blackwell explains, from 500 sheets to 50,000 4-color envelopes.

The new Anicolor machine shares Walker’s pressroom with a 4-color Speedmaster XL 105, a 2-color Speedmaster SM 52, and an older 1-color, 28” press. Walker’s full-service bindery hosts cutting, folding and stitching equipment, also from Heidelberg. Established 60 years ago and currently with 50 employees, the $6 million Montgomery, AL-based Walker Printing serves a national client base that includes Christian ministries, associations, and direct mail clients.

Blackwell points to his company’s lineup of Heidelberg equipment with pride. “This is what I do for a living, and I believe in having the best equipment because it pays off in less downtime, greater productivity and higher resale value. When the stakes are high, it doesn’t make sense to risk cheaper equipment or settle for a supplier that doesn’t back up what it sells. Heidelberg gets it right every time.”

Short-run champ: Speedmaster 52 Anicolor.

Paulson Press Runs Clean and Green with Heidelberg Thermal CtP Device

Paulson Press of Elk Grove Village, IL is getting longer run lengths, fewer plate remakes and sharper dots since it installed a Heidelberg Suprasetter 105 thermal CtP device with Heidelberg workflow and began using Heidelberg Saphira thermal plates earlier this year. As a result, said vice president Paul Letto, “We’re cleaner, greener and faster. We especially like the processor, which uses less chemistry than our old violet platesetter and can go up to two weeks without cleaning.”

Couple these prepress improvements with a pressroom lineup that includes an ultra-productive 41” Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105 6-color press—Paulson was the first printer in Illinois to install Heidelberg’s Peak Performance flagship press—as well as 5- and 2-color 40” Speedmaster SM perfecting presses, and it’s no wonder that Letto can say with confidence that Paulson is well-equipped to deliver the customer service, quick turnarounds and superior quality its customers demand. “Heidelberg products stand the test of time and get the job done every time,” he concludes. The company’s full-service bindery also boasts a pair of POLAR paper cutters and a trio of Stahlfolders.

Established in 1969 and currently with 20 employees, Paulson Press is a general commercial printer serving primarily commercial and manufacturing customers throughout the Chicagoland area.

Clean, green, and fast: Suprasetter 105.

Litho Press Upgrades Plateroom, Bindery with Heidelberg Technology

Litho Press, San Antonio, TX, welcomed spring earlier this year with the installation of new pre- and postpress equipment from Heidelberg. The company’s prepress department is the beneficiary of a new Suprasetter 105 computer-to-plate device with Prepress Interface. In the full-service bindery, POLAR 115XT and POLAR 92X high-speed paper cutters equipped with jogger, scale, lift and Transomat offloader have enjoyed an enthusiastic reception from the company’s bindery operators.

According to prepress supervisor Matt Kelly, the faster speed of the Suprasetter “makes a big difference, and, since the plate wraps around the drum, we no longer have problems with dust. As a result, we have virtually eliminated the need to remake spoiled plates, and we no longer experience problems on press with our longer runs. We go through 50-80 plates a day and spend less time doing it.” The new Suprasetter also uses less chemistry and is easier to clean, he said. Heidelberg Saphira thermal plates and chemistry help ensure reliable results. Finally, while Litho’s press operators were initially skeptical about Heidelberg’s Prinect Prepress Interface, they quickly realized the benefit of transferring all print-relevant parameters automatically from prepress to press to the point where now, Kelly said, “they don’t want to run without it.” The new cutters also have made an “incredible difference,” he adds. “Our operators love the accuracy of the cuts and the labor-saving peripherals.”

According to Kelly, as a result of the new installations, “Our productivity has increased significantly at the cutters, in the plateroom, and on press.”

Elsewhere in the shop, Litho Press operates a Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 102 2-color perfector and a Speedmaster CD 102 5-color perfector, on which the company produces a wide variety of commercial printing, books and other publications. In addition to the two new cutters, the company bindery is also home to a Heidelberg saddlestitcher and a pair of Stahlfolders.

Kelly reserves special praise for Heidelberg’s service and consumables organizations, noting, “Of all the consumables vendors we’ve dealt with, Heidelberg is far and away the easiest to work with. The people are courteous and attentive, and if there’s a problem, they deal with it immediately.” Whatever the service issue, he adds, “Factory-trained Heidelberg technicians show up promptly and always know what they’re doing.”

Established in 1962, $4 million Litho Press employs a staff of 40 and serves a variety of clients throughout the United States.

Full House: Suprasetter 105 CtP device, POLAR 115XT, and POLAR 92X.

Greenerprinter Equips New Bindery with Postpress Technology by Heidelberg

When longtime Heidelberg customer Greenerprinter in Berkeley, CA opened a new facility in 2008, the company aimed to offer new products and broaden its opportunities in the short-run packaging market, including custom packaging. Existing bindery equipment occupied the new finishing building from Halloween 2008, following which the company commenced installation of an all-new lineup of bindery and finishing equipment from Heidelberg, including an ST 350 saddlestitcher, TH 82 folder, USA 20 folder, POLAR label and specialty die cutting machine (DCM), KAMA ProCut 74 platen die-cutter with foiling, and an ECO 80 folder-gluer.

As a result of the installations, Greenerprinter has virtually eliminated buyouts, shortened its turn times, and gained full control of overall quality, enabling the company to offer lower prices. As a result, said president and CEO Mario Assadi, “We are now free to explore new products and streamline our internal production and product development in line with our new capabilities.”

With the ST 350, for example, “We can now offer the highest quality booklets at a reasonable price. We also were able to eliminate multiple weekly trips to a vendor across the bay, saving time, money, and carbon emissions.” The new Stahl USA B20 folder, Assadi adds, “is excellent for small brochures, mailers and four-pagers, and can be set up in minutes.”

In addition, “Our new POLAR DCM produces beautiful round-corner business cards, circular cards and custom shapes with a quick changeover at very high production rates,” while the KAMA die cutter and ECO folder-gluer “enable us to do custom presentation folders, door hangers, foil and embossing.”

Greenerprinter serves a national client base consisting of businesses that are committed to sustainability or interested in being green. The company’s thoroughgoing commitment to the environment also extends to its use of environmentally friendly Heidelberg prepress and pressroom consumables to ensure environmentally compliant production – without incurring any degradation in quality.

“Heidelberg has always been the leader in new technologies in printing, prepress and postpress technologies,” Assadi confirms. “They also are a full-service provider with high-quality products and a heightened sense of social responsibility we also share. It has been gratifying to work with a partner that believes, as we do, that business success and good corporate citizenship are not mutually exclusive.”

All the bases covered: POLAR DCM, KAMA ProCut 74, ST 350 saddlestitcher, and Stahlfolder TH82.

Rainbow Printing Steps Up to Speedmaster XL 75 To Give Customers What They Want

When customers clamor, Rainbow Printing listens—and then acts. In response to clients “begging us to get a larger press,” the erstwhile small-format trade printer purchased and installed a 29” Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 5-color press with aqueous coater, Inpress color control and integrated Wallscreen in May. Roughly 2.5 million impressions later, said general manager Gary Sanders, the company views the improvement in its operations as a result of the installation in terms of waste reduction, improved quality, additional revenue and new clients.

“The step-up to half-size format represents a step up in quality for us, since we’re now able to print to 200-line screen,” Sanders said. “Jobs just look better.” In addition, “Prinect Inpress Control has enabled us to reduce our makeready from 300 sheets to 100, saving us hundreds of dollars a day in paper waste, which is just phenomenal.” In addition to dramatically lower makeready waste, the XL 75’s larger format size also permits Rainbow to print more up on a sheet and to gang work, to the point where “We’ve noticed our profitability on the same types of jobs we used to print on our small-format press has gone up by 8 or 9 percent,” he said. Finally, the company has been able to add new products such as pocket folders, as well as to print on heavier, board-grade stock.

Elsewhere in its 31,000-square foot shop, Rainbow Printing operates a Speedmaster SM 52 5-color press with inline coating, a pair of Heidelberg QM 46 2-color machines, a Heidelberg GTO 2-color press, and a POLAR 92 guillotine cutter. The company uses assorted Heidelberg pressroom consumables, including blankets and towels.

As far as Sanders is concerned, “The Heidelberg names carries weight. When we’re approaching new clients, the brand gives them confidence. Moreover, because our pressmen have been running Heidelbergs all their lives, training was a breeze. The operators were already very familiar with the mechanical aspects of the press and just needed some instruction on the electronics side.”

Established in 1974 and with annual revenue in the $4 million range, Rainbow Printing serves the needs of a customer base located in the region between Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.

A step up in every way: The Speedmaster XL 75.

Crown Embossing and Heidelberg Keep the Customer Satisfied

Crown Embossing, Houston, recently purchased and installed a 20” Stahlfolder USA B20 continuous-feed folder with right-angle attachment and attachments for scoring, perfing and slitting, as well as a refurbished Heidelberg SBDZ cylinder press configured for foil stamping and embossing. According to company president Edmond Rassi, the installations were undertaken in response to customer demand for services not widely available in the Houston area, primarily 40” foil stamping and embossing.

“Our aim was to give our customers what they wanted, not to have to turn work away, and to establish ourselves as a premier finisher in the Houston area,” Rassi said. “With a full range of finishing capabilities in-house and a well-established specialty in foil stamping and embossing, we’re well positioned to provide services the competition can’t; in fact, a number of our competitors already have sent us jobs they aren’t equipped to handle.” As a result, he said, “We’re starting to expand our regional coverage as far as San Antonio and Austin.”

The new Stahlfolder handles “anything that needs folding,” Rassi said, citing the B20’s outstanding flexibility, fold quality and productivity that enables Crown to turn most jobs within 24 hours. “For us, the right angle attachment completes this folder the way milk goes with cereal, and the DCT 500 digital control unit really makes the machine run smoothly. We couldn’t ask for a more efficient, small-format solution to our folding needs,” he said.

Sixty-year-old Crown Embossing has always owned Heidelberg equipment and can’t imagine doing business without it, Rassi said. “Heidelberg has been in our family for years,” he said. “I cut my teeth on a Heidelberg,” he quipped.

For anything that needs folding, the Heidelberg Stahlfolder USA B20 .

Heidelberg Figures Prominently in Texas Shop’s Master Plan for Growth

Q’s Printing and Design, a growth-minded small business commercial and trade printer and doing business in San Angelo, Texas, recently installed a pair of Heidelberg Printmaster QM 46 2-color presses to help handle a sharply increasing volume of commercial printing. According to company vice president Randy Marshall, the net effect of the new press installations has been “to take a good operator and make him almost twice as productive, due to the high level of automation.”

The twin QM 46-2s, which replace a pair of competitive small-format machines, are the most recent acquisitions for Q’s Printing and Design, which also installed a POLAR 92 paper cutter, a Stahlfolder USA B20 with right-angle attachment and a Prosetter 52 computer-to-plate device with Heidelberg workflow within the past year. The company uses Heidelberg Saphira consumables including Saphira violet plates and chemistry, Saphira low-tack ink sets and alcohol-free fountain solution.

“All of the Heidelberg Saphira consumables we’ve tried have been first-rate,” Marshall said. “The 4-color ink sets, in particular, have given me the ability to push colors farther than ever before on our existing 4-tower press and correct any color problems we might have. I can hit colors quickly and print saleable color in a hurry. The more I use Saphira consumables, the more impressed I am.”

The $1.4 million company, which employs a staff of six and serves a clientele located primarily in Texas and the southwest regional U.S., currently is preparing to relocate to a new, larger facility in San Angelo. “We’re an outstanding little shop and we look forward to nothing but growth,” Marshall said. “We expect that Heidelberg will continue to play an important role in our future.”

Mighty mite: Printmaster QM 46.

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) is, with its sheetfed offset printing machines, one of the leading solution providers for the print media industry. All over the world, the name Heidelberg is synonymous with state-of-the art technology, top quality, and closeness to the customer. The core business of this technology group covers the whole value-added and process chain for the 35 x 50 cm (13.78 x 19.69 in) to 121 x 162 cm (47.64 x 63.78 in) format classes in the sheetfed offset sector.

Heidelberg develops and produces precision printing presses, platesetters, postpress equipment, and software for integrating all the printshop processes. Environmental protection has an enduring importance in this regard. Solutions for the development, production, and utilization of presses help to conserve resources, reduce emissions, and cut wastage. The Heidelberg portfolio also provides general and consulting services ranging from spare parts and consumables to the sale of remarketed equipment, and training at the Print Media Academy.