Seal of Excellent Print Quality

The Zarbock media house in Frankfurt is the first sheetfed offset printing company in the German state of Hesse to be certified according to the new standard

Druck- und Verlagshaus Zarbock in Frankfurt invested an almost six-digit Euro sum for a series of tests and attendant staff costs to obtain the Offset Printing Process Standard ISO 12647-2. This is an investment in the future because an ever increasing number of large and global print buyers specify this certificate as a prerequisite for placing orders. The prescribed print form for the successful certification was printed on a ROLAND 700 from MAN Roland. Zarbock has banked on these multicolour presses from Offenbach for a long time.
 
 "The Process Standard certification we received at the beginning of the year attests to the quality of our print products and absolute repeatability", emphasises Ralf Zarbock, one of the Zarbock company's two General Managers. For some of his customers the Process Standard is a prerequisite for a printing plant even being allowed to make a quotation. And Ralf Zarbock is certain that "the number of such customers will increase". And when these customers deal with a certified printing company they gain yet another benefit: there is no need for them to attend the time-consuming colour matching process at the press. "We are of course always pleased when customers visit us but they have other things to do", is how Zarbock comments on the time savings from the print buyers' point of view. An important component of the certificate is standard-compliant print simulation: the proof. Once the customer has signed this as "OK", he/she can be certain that the results of the subsequent production run will be identical. 

All internal processes coordinated

Druckhaus Zarbock is a full-service printer producing mainly financial reports, catalogues, image brochures and leaflets in multi-shift operation. Even though this company with a staff of 80 and annual sales of around EUR 14 million has long been providing the highest print quality with very short delivery times, the learning and implementation process leading up to certification demanded a great deal of commitment. "One must have the entire workflow under control", says Frank Zarbock, the other General Manager of this family-owned company. Once handling of the widest variety of data, proofing and platemaking conform to the Process Standard, the printing presses are then tested. For the certificate to be given, two independent assessors from the Printing Industries Federation must confirm that the prescribed test form has been printed perfectly, meaning that the measured colour print must not deviate more than Delta E4 from the proof. Anyone apart from an expert printer can at best detect colour differences in the Delta E5 range which is much higher.

The presses must be in perfect condition

As Frank Zarbock stresses: "Our presses must of course be in perfect condition. Common problems such as doubling or misregister have to be absolutely avoided." All the 3B-format presses at the Zarbock company are from MAN Roland – four ROLAND 700s with five to ten printing units, sheet turning stations, and some with coating modules, a total of 29 printing units. They are very well equipped and automated primarily for colour workflow. Regular professional maintenance is one reason why they still produce the highest print quality even though they have many million sheets on the counter. "One of our presses has more than 100 million on the clock but it still printed the certification test form well within the tolerances", reports Frank Zarbock. And Harald Hesper, Sales Manager of MAN Roland Deutschland, adds: "With important process-compliant system components which we test in our Offenbach Graphic Center and recommend to our customers, we support the growing demands on constant print quality and repeatability." He mentions the blankets as an example – these play an important part in standardised production.
 
Zarbock has an elaborate water treatment system to ensure identical printing conditions on all the presses. In a central unit, the damping solution is softened, tempered, and made available to all presses in identical quality with a reduced alcohol content of 3 to 4 percent. "This makes sure that we have an important influencing variable for constant quality well under control", says Frank Zarbock.
 
The high standards set by certification will remain the norm for Zarbock in the future. The next check by the assessors will be made after two years at the latest. But despite the Seal of Quality some customers remain discerning buyers. "One asked us for the sheets from the certification tests to make their own measurements", reports Frank Zarbock. However that's no problem for this Frankfurt printer: the Offset Process Standard has become a part of the company's philosophy and implemented with appropriate systems and equipment.