Speedmaster SM 52 - User Report: W. Kohlhammer Print Shop

W. Kohlhammer Druckerei GmbH & Co., Obertürkheim (Germany) - First user of the Speedmaster SM 52 ten-color press

The print shop W. Kohlhammer can look back on a history of 140 years. In 1866 Wilhelm Kohlhammer founded a publishing company for forms in Stuttgart. In 1937 all print shops that were spread in downtown Stuttgart were unified in one huge production location in Stuttgart-Obertürkheim. The floor space of 10,000 square meters features a multi-story production and storage area of 13,000 square meters. Thus Druckerei Kohlhammer still is one of Southern Germany's most cutting-edge and innovative print shops.

"We constantly invest in the best and most productive machines on the market," says the director Gotthold Bayer summing up the company's strategy. "Together with our highly motivated staff, we offer our customers a full service that meets all their needs," he adds. Kohlhammer systematically focuses on customer needs and offers a one-stop service, ranging from layout design to zipcode-optimized shipping. So today many different print products like magazines, business reports, catalogues, brochures, calendars, cards, posters and books are produced.

The company is well-equipped, with four CtP platesetters for the fully-digital prepress and a total of 69 printing units in the pressroom in Stuttgart, ranging from 12 printing units of small format presses - (35 x 50 centimeter - 13.78 x 19.69 inch), to 33 printing units in 3B format - (70 x 100 centimeter - 27.56 x 39.37 inch), to 14 printing units in 113 x 162 cm format - (44.49 x 63.78 inch). Some 34 of these printing units are from Heidelberg. Also postpress is fully equipped, with complex cutters and folders to high-performance perfect binders. A digital press is used for personalized printing.

Customers are always on the lookout for the latest and most productive presses and are continually enhancing internal workflows. Kohlhammer has enjoyed a long and successful working relationship with Heidelberg, dating back to the days of letterpress. Kohlhammer had long been looking for a replacement for the Speedmaster SM 52 six-color press, which was used mainly for producing cover pages of magazines and brochures in the final format. But as coating and a special color were often needed, jobs had to go through the press twice.

Gotthold Bayer and his colleague Steffen Franzisi saw the Speedmaster SM 52 eight-color press for the first time in a world premiere at drupa 2004. Intensive consultations resulted in the press being extended to ten colors for Kohlhammer. This special press was customized in a 4/6 configuration and installed in January 2006. "I've rarely seen a press that has operated so smoothly from day one," affirms Steffen Franzisi. Sheets are now printed in four colors, then turned and printed again in four colors in a single pass. This is followed by the special color and finally the coating. "This has already generated a 50 percent increase in production over the previous straight printing press," says Steffen Franzisi, who is delighted with the results. The average run is 3,000 to 5,000 sheets, but runs as short as 70 to 300 sheets or as long as 40,000 are also produced. The press has a particularly significant impact on short runs due to its short makeready times and fast inking-up.