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Printing Presses and Machinery (New and Used, Service and Repair)
News Release from: MAN Roland GB | Subject: Directdrive
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial
Team on 14 November 2006
Directdrive Is Press Make-Ready
Breakthrough
MAN Roland has given its first public demonstration of Directdrive technology.
MAN Roland has given its first public demonstration of Directdrive technology The venue for the event was the Universitatsdruckerei H Schmidt, a print and publishing group based in Mainz
This article was originally published on Printingtalk on 25 Mar 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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World Debut of MAN Directdrive At Drupa 2004
What MAN Roland believes to be a trailblazing technical innovation will open up new savings potentials on sheetfed presses.
Press System Creates Plate Changes World Record
Deep in Germany's industrial heartland, a new world record has been set - 103 complete plate changes using 412 plates in 24 hours of continuous production.
The company was one of MAN Roland's field test partners for the project.
All six printing units of a new six-colour Roland 700 press have been equipped with directly driven plate cylinders to help reduce make-ready time for plate changing, wash-ups of the blanket and impression cylinders and inking-up by as much as 60 per cent, claimed MAN Roland.
Whilst printing a six-colour poster with photographs of the guests, the Universitatsdruckerei H Schmidt demonstrated a full plate change, blanket and impression cylinder wash-up and printing the first proof sheet in four minutes 30 seconds.
Further reading
New Roland Presses For High Productivity
With a mix of technical presentations and press demonstrations, MAN Roland presented the new Roland 700 press models at the Offenbach Technology Forum.
Directdrive Press Achieves 25%-35% Savings
Between 25 per cent and 35 per cent savings in set-up costs and time are being claimed by MAN Roland following two field test sites of its Roland 700 Directdrive press.
Direct Drive Press Radically Cuts Make-Ready Times
The UK's first MAN Roland 700 Directdrive press has been sold to UK print group St Ives for its music and multimedia operation.
That was followed by another plate change without wash-ups in less than three minutes.
Commenting on the demonstration from a UK perspective, Gary Doman, director of sales for sheetfed and finishing products at MAN Roland GB, said: "We have already received significant interest from a number of UK print sites regarding Directdrive following the initial showing of a stand-alone unit at Drupa in 2004.
This latest announcement illustrates the progress that has been made with this breakthrough technology.
We are looking forward to making an announcement in the near future with regard to the first UK purchase of Directdrive." He continued: "It is worth noting that whilst reducing make-ready times is a very hot topic for printers at the moment, it is currently largely being achieved with systems such as automated plate changing and CIP3 files for ink duct settings.
These were introduced approximately 18 and 10 years ago, respectively.
Directdrive is the first significant breakthrough on reducing make-ready times to have been introduced for a decade." The Directdrive project was initiated through MAN Roland's experience in web printing machinery, where the simultaneous set-up of different areas of the press is a common practice, said the company.
The concept created or MAN Roland's sheedfed presses, is claimed to enable the plate cylinder to be mechanically disengaged and directly driven by a high-torque motor mounted on the cylinder journal.
Linked in a control and regulation loop with the blanket cylinder, the plate cylinder holds its position exactly, with an error tolerance of less then 1/100th of a millimetre, added the company.
As well as opening up the possibility of simultaneous plate changes on multiple print units, Directdrive also introduces the concept of the 'flying plate change' to the sheetfed market, claimed MAN Roland.
The term - common in the web world - refers to a single plate change, a black text plate for example, whilst the machine is still running.
Such a capability might allow several different language versions of a brochure to be printed without actually stopping the print run at all.
Dr Markus Rall, a member of the MAN Roland executive board and responsible for the sheetfed press business unit, said: "The idea behind Directdrive breaks the shackles." He added that the aim of Directdrive is to provide a significant increase in production time because of a dramatic decrease in make-ready time.
Bertram Schmidt-Friderichs, owner and chief executive officer of the printing and publishing group, had earlier explained in the company's own museum why it, as a field test partner, is now also a 'technology pioneer', said that the position owed a lot to the trust his business put in MAN Roland and that experience to date with the new system showed that it is stable.
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