Inline Modules: Additional Benefits For Printers

Three of the major factors affecting the printing industry today are quality, productivity, and costs. MAN Roland is focusing on these with products and know-how to make its customers more successful. For sheetfed printers "Value Added Printing" means instruments for a sustained increase in productivity such as the QuickChange equipment for makeready time reduction, and also stands for process integration with creative inline solutions.

ROLAND InlineCoater – know-how makes the difference

MAN Roland's inline coating module technology is based on 26 years of experience. Initially the focus was on the protective function of dispersion coating but gloss effects rapidly became very important. This was followed by gold and silver applications made possible by double coating modules using anilox roller/chambered doctor blade technology. And then the possibilities were expanded even further by the increasing use of UV inks and coatings along with the enormous progress made in application technologies and materials. Applying a primer coating over conventional inks enabled matt/gloss UV effects to be produced in a quality previously unknown.

ROLAND 700 Ultima – flexible inline enhancement

The ROLAND 700 Ultima is based on the inline enhancement technology using single and double coating modules proven over many years. The primary application is high-quality printing and coating of both sides of the sheet in one pass through the press. Particularly for long runs that must be produced in the shortest possible time, this process will become widely accepted. After the coating module the sheet passes along a double interdeck drying path and over an application module before it is turned and then printed and coated on the other side. Another version of the ROLAND 700 Ultima features a coating module plus drying modules immediately after the sheet turning station. For special effects with top-quality packaging or brochure printing the coating and drying modules can be located right after the feeder. These special presses are particularly suitable for applying opaque white or metallic effect coatings upstream of the offset printing units. Job turnaround times can be drastically reduced since a second or even a third offline process is saved. This reduces labour costs, fewer logistics steps are needed, and less space is required for semi-finished goods. And another advantage not to be underestimated is that by producing the job in one pass colour and register for the complete job can be checked so there is no risk of problems only showing up during a second pass.

ROLAND InlineCoater smart – enhancement for commercial printers

Inline coating has been common practice for many years, above all for packaging printers who coat almost every job. More and more commercial printers are interested in inline coating as well but since most of them only coat occasionally they cannot justify the cost of a coating module with extended delivery. This is why MAN Roland has developed the ROLAND InlineCoater smart. This system is very suitable for occasional and simple applications of dispersion coating (protective and matt or gloss coating) on paper and light board. The printing unit equipped with the ROLAND Inline-Coater smart can be changed over from printing to coating and vice versa within a reasonable time. It can be fitted to the last printing unit of all ROLAND 700 straight printing or perfecting presses. An IR/hot-air drying system specially modified to suit the standard delivery ensures good drying results.

The ROLAND InlineFoiler Prindor is a fine example of Value Added Printing – uniting the highest brilliance with optimized inline production processes. As opposed to the established hot-foil embossing method no second production step is needed for inline cold foil transfer and the mate-rial is not subjected to heat. This is how the highest quality can be com-bined with economic efficiency. Two printing units are required: in the first printing unit the areas of the substrate where foil is to be applied are printed with a special adhesive ink via the inking roller system using a conventional offset printing plate. This adhesive ink is coloured so that the amount applied can be objectively measured with the aid of a densitome-ter. In the second printing unit above which the foil unwinding station is mounted, the blanket cylinder presses the foil onto the areas of the sheet covered with the adhesive ink. The unused foil remains on the carrier layer which is rewound by the rewinding station above the third printing unit. In this printing unit and subsequent ones the substrate and foil can be printed. Overprinting enables interesting effects to be achieved through the combination of foil and different coloured inks. This is a unique and patented process. One major advantage of cold foil transfer is the fast changeover between foil transfer and normal printing. Experience shows this only takes around 30 minutes. 
 
A ROLAND 700 with six printing units and a coating module is the best configuration for inline cold foil transfer. This permits cold foil transfer plus four-color printing and coating, or the press can be used for normal six-colour printing with inline coating.