World Premiere at a Perfecting Specialist

MAN Roland and Druckerei Kriechbaumer present the world's first ROLAND 500 with InlinePerfector

Over 200 guests interested in highly productive long perfector presses came from all parts of Europe to Taufkirchen near Munich at the end of January for the presentation of the first eight-colour ROLAND 500 with a sheet turning system. On four consecutive days the event partners MAN Roland, Kriechbaumer, and Epple Druckfarben also ran a technical symposium which dealt with many aspects of perfecting printing.
 
The Fritz Kriechbaumer printing company specialises in printing with long perfectors. Founded in Munich in 1952, the company installed its first MAN Roland perfecting press in 1998, a ten-colour ROLAND 700. Another ten-colour followed in 2000, three years later a twelve-colour was installed and the half-sheet ROLAND 500 P with eight printing units started production last year. In the intervening years two short perfectors, a two-colour and a four-colour ROLAND 700, were installed for jobs with less colour content. 

Output tripled

In the space of seven years Kriechbaumer has doubled the number of its printing units and tripled its output. Last year the company's output was 120 million sheets printed both sides and thus Kriechbaumer is the largest sheetfed commercial printer in the Munich area and one of the largest in all of Bavaria.
 
Despite this rapid growth and a staff of around 160 today, Kriechbaumer has remained a family-owned company managed by Fritz Kriechbaumer senior, the founder, and his son Hans Kriechbaumer junior. The Technical Director Raimund Hauser was responsible for implementing the strategic business, product, and technology plan that was developed in 1998. The main reasons he gives for switching to long perfectors are capacity expansion, faster deliveries and simplification of pressroom management. 

High quality

Kriechbaumer serves the quality market and prints for well-known manufacturers of brand name articles, especially the automobile, computer and pharmaceutical industries, along with insurance companies and banks. The company works directly for industrial companies as well as agencies. It has customers all over Germany and also abroad. Most of the jobs have run lengths of up to 10,000 but quite a number have run lengths of up to 200,000.
 
The products and production are highly standardised. These include brochures, catalogues, financial reports, flyers, leaflets, zigzag-folded brochures, folders, books and magazines. Around 80 percent of the jobs are made up of signatures and covers for brochures, reports and folders printed 4 over 4 or 6 over 6 colours and coated, sometimes coated both sides, on art paper between 80 and 170 g/m² .
 
The prepress operations at Kriechbaumer generally start with data checking and enhancement and take the usual course of proofing and CtP platemaking up to generation of CIP3 data for presetting the press ink slides. The finishing operations include cutting, folding, gang stitching, single-sheet collating, and folder production. Everything else such as perfect binding is done outside by trade bookbinders.
 
Kriechbaumer attributes its strong competitive edge to high product quality, dependably fast delivery times thanks to the long perfectors, and the customer relationships built up over many years.

Enormous productivity

The new eight-colour ROLAND 500 P is used for printing 8-page signatures 4 over 4 and straight printing jobs with up to eight colours, sometimes coated, and also for short-run jobs down to around 1000 sheets. Raimund Hauser emphasises that the productivity of the ROLAND 500 P is enormous. 15,000 sheets per hour in perfecting mode is definitely achievable in practice with suitable substrates. But he feels that the short makeready times are almost more important, the average being 30 minutes for a 4 over 4 job. And he has no doubts at all about the quality that the ROLAND 500 can provide and is full of praise for the OptiPrint jackets for the impression cylinders which have greatly increased print quality, especially concerning uniformity on both sides of the sheet.

Live-Demos and Symposium

During live demonstrations in Kriechbaumer's pressroom the visitors were able to witness the performance capabilities of the eight-colour ROLAND 500 P. Two demanding jobs were printed each day, one with the same image on both sides so that it was easier to inspect the quality uniformity on both sides of the sheet.
 
Besides the practical reports given by Raimund Hauser, the accompanying symposium dealt with the technology and benefits of the ROLAND 500 P and the profitability of long perfectors in general. And the markets, structures and trends of sheetfed offset were also examined along with the significance of perfecting. 

New fast-setting ink

Epple Druckfarben presented its new Perfect Finish ink series that have been developed and optimised in cooperation with MAN Roland and Druckerei Kriechbaumer. With the first generation of mineral oil-free perfecting inks produced in the mid-1990s, it was widely believed that the inks should set slowly. But now, thanks to OptiPrint jackets, newly-developed fast-absorbing binding agents can be used. Perfect Finish is also suitable for straight printing. Following eight months of development and extensive practical tests at Kriechbaumer with different substrates and coating, this ink series is now on the market.