Heidelberg Solutions Drive Productivity for Printers Large and Small

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

Japs-Olson Installs Speedmaster XL 105 12-Color Perfector

The Japs-Olson Company in St. Louis Park, MN recently purchased and installed a Peak Performance Speedmaster XL 105 12-color perfector with extended delivery and aqueous coater, and featuring Heidelberg Prinect components including Prinect Prepress Interface and two Prinect Inpress Control reporting systems installed before and after the perfecting unit. The new press also features Heidelberg’s 2009 InterTech Award-winning Prinect Press Center with high-definition Wallscreen Application. The company already is running the new press across three shifts, seven days a week, with no slowdown in sight. Moreover, thanks to not one but two integrated Inpress control systems, the new XL 105 can produce color-perfect printing on both sides, in one pass, at the full rated speed of 15,000 sph.

“We are very happy with the set-up and changeover times on this press, as well as with its overall productivity,” said company president Michael Murphy. “I would say it’s looking very good for fulfilling our expectations – and then some.”

The new press joins Japs-Olson’s Heidelberg-intensive pressroom, which already hosts a bevy of 12-, 10-, and 8-color Speedmaster 102s. The company’s full-service bindery offers an assortment of Heidelberg POLAR cutting systems, Stitchmaster saddlestitchers and Stahlfolders—including a new TH model with Speedbander. All machines are networked with Heidelberg Prinect components.

Japs-Olson is a 102-year-old direct mail production and commercial print specialist serving a national client base from its 500,000-square-foot facility in St. Louis Park. The company employs more than 500 people. What keeps longtime customer Japs-Olson coming back to Heidelberg? “Great equipment and reliable service,” Murphy answers. “It really is that simple.”

Check out the ultra-productive Speedmaster XL 105 here .

DocuMart Revs Up Prepress Workflow with Heidelberg Suprasetter A75

DocuMart reports the installation of a Suprasetter A75 SCL CtP device with Prinect prepress workflow at its Portland, OR facility. The new platesetter replaced a competitive machine that hampered operations with lower quality, lower resolution, slower speeds and an unstable RIP. In contrast, said Prepress Manager Michael Hood, “The new Suprasetter not only has greatly improved our speed, but the quality is such that we don’t have to recalibrate all the time, and the line resolution and hybrid screening yield a much cleaner dot.” In addition, “Our Saphira thermal plates don’t need much water, so they run better on press.” Best of all, said Hood, who lobbied energetically for the Heidelberg machine, the Suprasetter’s single cassette loader enables the platesetter to run at night, leaving perfect, finished plates for press operators in the morning. The new Suprasetter currently produces around 1,500 plates per month for DocuMart. As for service after the sale, Heidelberg personnel have been nothing less than “awesome,” Hood said.

Family owned and with 51 employees in Portland, OR, DocuMart serves a broad-based regional clientele. The company has several other locations in Portland, in addition to facilities in Utah, Louisiana and Colorado.

Perfectly productive: the Suprasetter A75

Laurel Print and Graphics Installs All-Heidelberg Lineup After Disaster Strikes

When a flash flood destroyed the equipment in his 6,000-square-foot print shop earlier this summer, the owner of Laurel Print and Graphics in Turtle Creek, PA saw the chance to transform an emergency into an opportunity. Following a period during which the company outsourced its work-on-hand to other local firms, Laurel print replaced its defunct cutter, folder, and two small-format presses (both Heidelbergs) with a new lineup entirely by Heidelberg, including a POLAR 78 XS high-speed cutter, a Stahlfolder USA B20 with right-angle attachment, a Printmaster PM 52 4-color press, a Printmaster QM 46 2-color machine, and assorted, Heidelberg-branded Saphira pressroom consumables. “It’s not necessarily the way we wanted to get there, but I’ve always wanted to have an all-Heidelberg shop,” said company president Keith Jones. Although the new equipment has been in production for less than a month at this point, Jones already is convinced that his all-Heidelberg instincts were dead-on in the first place. “We always had performance and reliability issues with other suppliers’ equipment,” he said, “but our older Printmaster PM 52 2-color press ran for four productive, problem-free years before the flood. We look forward to more of the same.”

Laurel Print and Graphics provides business stationery, brochures, leaflets, forms, postcards and other commercially printed materials to a regional client base located in western Pennsylvania. The company employs a staff of five.

Better than ever: POLAR 78XS high-speed cutter; Stahlfolder USA B20; Printmaster PM 52; and Printmaster QM46.

M13 Graphics Installs Twin POLAR Cutters with Compucut

M13 Graphics, Inc. is an online retail design and printing company currently in transition from outside brokering to in-house manufacturing. To help negotiate the shift, the company recently installed a pair of POLAR 115 XT guillotine cutters with lifts, jogger and scales, and proceeded to network them via Heidelberg Compucut software. Compucut creates efficient cutting programs for M13’s POLAR high-speed cutters by generating all required presettings from CtP files and loading the correct cutting program into the machine, enabling it to operate without interruption. This was of paramount importance to the company, whose bread-and-butter derives from its ability to print, then gang run a wide variety of differently sized products—business cards, flyers, postcards, brochures, etc.—on a single sheet.

“It’s like a huge jigsaw puzzle,” said company owner Dan Banakis. “Before we had Compucut, it would take us anywhere from six to 10 hours at night to lay out those sheets, compared with the few minutes per form it takes now. It’s a huge work- and time-saver, especially since we specialize in run lengths between 1,000 and 5,000 pieces and provide 24-hour turnaround on most projects.” Not surprisingly, Banakis views autoprogramming with Compucut and waste removal via Autotrim as vital to M13’s campaign to build efficiency and trim costs.

The decision to in-source its printing and cutting work will enable M13 to more closely control the quality of the work itself, and to realize a greater profit in the bargain, Banakis explains. “Outsourcing the kind of work we do often meant that our jobs would get pushed to the end of the queue and compromise our ability to provide next-day service.”

M13 Graphics, which had been operating from a temporary facility in nearby Morton Grove, IL, commenced business in its new manufacturing mode from its expanded headquarters in Schaumburg on Sept. 1.

One sharp cookie: the POLAR 115 XT with Autotrim

Western Robidoux Adds Second Printmaster QM 46

With a history of customer service that stretches back more than 100 years, Western Robidoux, a family-owned commercial printer in St. Joseph, MO knows what works. When the time came to replace its aging Printmaster QM 46-2 small-format press, therefore, the company bought another one. The new press joins a lineup of Heidelberg equipment that includes a 5-color Speedmaster 52 with aqueous coater, a Stahlfolder USA B20 folder and a POLAR 78X paper cutter. As for the new QM 46, the company loads up the press with a variety of commercial 2-color work in various format sizes, including brochures, business cards, fliers, and other materials, making efficient use of the new machine’s central format settings, ability to handle a wide range of printing stocks and perform accelerated job changes. The company also utilizes a small-format accessory that permits the more efficient feeding of A2 envelopes.

“You know,” said plant manager Peter Burri, “The only time we’ve been less than satisfied in terms of investment is when we didn’t buy a piece of Heidelberg equipment. Heidelberg is a company that does what it says.” Western Robidoux employs a staff of 22 and serves a diverse client base located in northwest MO.

Tucson Printer Banishes Downtime with QM 46-2 from Heidelberg

AlphaGraphics 153 (Cooper Enterprises, Inc.) in Tucson, AZ recently added a Heidelberg Printmaster QM 46 2-color press to relieve the load on an aging QM 46-2, which had “outlived” its original service contract. According to owner Keith Cooper, the new press is “a real workhorse” that handles “spot color work, everything,” in addition to saving on labor, time, service calls and downtime. “It’s also easier to produce a good quality piece on the new press,” Cooper added. The small commercial printer produces about 250 Heidelberg Cristala plates each month on its Heidelberg Quicksetter.

Founded in 1986, the family owned AlphaGraphics franchise employs a staff of 14 and serves a local clientele. Annual revenue is in the $1.5 million range.

For a closer look at the Printmaster QM 46, click here.

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG
With a global market share for sheetfed offset printing machines of more than 40 percent, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) is the world's leading solution provider for commercial and industrial customers in the print media industry. Headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, the Company focuses on the entire process and value chain for popular format classes in the sheetfed offset and flexographic printing sectors. Apart from printing presses, the product portfolio includes plate imaging devices and finishing equipment, as well as software components designed to integrate all print manufacturing processes. In addition, Heidelberg offers a wide range of spare parts, consumables, used equipment and services, along with extensive training programs provided by the Print Media Academy. Furthermore, the Company assists its customers' investment plans by offering financing concepts.

Heidelberg is most active within the major OECD industrial regions and is expanding its involvement within growing markets such as Asia and Eastern Europe. With development and production sites in six countries and some 250 sales offices worldwide, the Company offers services to more than 200,000 customers around the globe. Heidelberg generates 85 percent of global sales through company-owned sales offices and above 85 percent outside of Germany. In fiscal year 2007/2008, Heidelberg achieved sales of Euro 3.670 billion referring to the divisions Press, Postpress and Financial Services as well as a net profit of Euro 142 million. As of March 31, 2008, the Group employed 19,596 staff worldwide.