Prior to drupa 2016, it looked as though specialists would need to look at tiny details to identify ways of making progress in offset printing. The trade show changed all that. By introducing its Push to Stop philosophy, HEIDELBERG paved the way for the autonomous pressroom. “A new dawn is breaking,” Rainer Wolf said at the time. He is now Head of Portfolio Management for Sheetfed Offset and Postpress Commercial. “Printing businesses will be transformed into smart print shops with digitalized, intelligently networked, and automated production processes,” he predicted.
This new approach changed the perception of the well-established offset printing process. Whereas printing simply used to mean transmitting and reproducing information, it now also includes data handling, IT, and network technology. Everything revolves around an integrated and automated process. Consequently, it will not be getting good print results that will determine success in the future but rather having printing processes under control.
In a smart print shop, printing becomes part of a networked end-to-end process – and HEIDELBERG has the ideal software solution for this. “Prinect is a central platform linking all steps in the print production process, from initial customer contact and actual production through to shipping the finished product and billing,” explains Axel Zöller, Product Manager Digital Workflow at HEIDELBERG.
Hybrid printing, which combines digital and analog production processes, is now playing an increasingly important role. Are digital and offset printing the dream team of the future? “The two complement each other perfectly. Offset presses handle long runs cost effectively, while digital printing is a flexible solution for short runs,” explains Christopher Berti, Head of Digital Print Ecosystem. “The Prinect workflow automatically assigns jobs to the appropriate output device,” he adds. Thanks to cooperation agreements with Ricoh and Canon, the HEIDELBERG portfolio now includes digital toner and inkjet printing systems alongside the company’s own offset presses.
The customer response so far is impressive. “HEIDELBERG has integrated over 3,000 Versafire toner-based printing systems and more than 1,500 third-party digital presses into its Prinect technology worldwide,” reveals Ulrike Seethaler, Product Manager Digital Print Workflow. “The company’s experience and comprehensive know-how have now also been used to incorporate the Jetfire 50 inkjet system,” she explains.
HEIDELBERG sheetfed offset presses were already highly efficient and designed for production outputs of up to 18,000sheets per hour. The aim was to ensure fast job changes, short downtimes, and minimal paper waste. To coincide with drupa2024, however, the output of these presses was further increased using automation, optimization, and AI. They now achieve peak outputs of up to 21,000sheets per hour - even in perfecting mode.
Ultimately, though, production speed still depends on the performance of operators, who need to actively initiate individual steps when following conventional production procedures. In the past, that meant ten jobs per day was the norm. That soon became ten jobs per shift. Today, under ideal conditions, industrial commercial print shops process ten jobs per hour on a single press, which goes beyond the physical limits of one person.
HEIDELBERG is therefore helping printing companies realize the productivity potential of their presses with the Speedmaster Operating System. This system supports user-friendly operation thanks to gesture-controlled touchscreens, the Wallscreen, and a user interface with help functions in 27languages. The highly automated color and quality measurement systems find the print control strip, paper white, and register marks fully automatically and start the color control process without any operator intervention. HEIDELBERG has also introduced smart setup sequences, assistance systems with and without artificial intelligence, and automatic wash programs. LED navigation support on the Speedmaster rounds off this unique operating solution.
A printing press is still built using large quantities of metal, but that is only part of the story. “Hidden inside a Speedmaster are electronic components, all kinds of software, and around 3,000 sensors that record data and pass on thousands of status messages to the servers at HEIDELBERG every day,” explains Zöller. HEIDELBERG evaluates and recomputes these data sets to come up with solutions such as predictive maintenance for presses.
The comprehensive data analyses can also be used to develop solutions that go beyond current requirements. “The innovations in AI-supported intelligent assistance systems provide impressive proof of what is already possible and an indication of what is to come in the years ahead. We are systematically also looking beyond the press,” says Wolf.
One example of this is Plate to Unit automatic printing plate logistics, which eases the physical strain on press operators. This system can supply – and dispose of – printing plates on a near fully automated basis. “With Plate to Unit, we are taking the development of the smart print shop to a whole new level by making offset printing a more attractive option for the industrial production of short runs,” explains Wolf. The Prinect Scheduler is used to plan job sequences.
A state-of-the-art classic, the Speedmaster is the ideal solution for all printing needs.
It is fast, sustainable, highly efficient, and easy to operate. The latest generation of Speedmaster presses incorporates innovations from decades of development work at HEIDELBERG. PushtoStop, including AI-supported assistance systems, and PlatetoUnit ease the strain on press operators and boost output. All this means offset printing is more flexible than ever before and can also be used for shorter runs.
This digital tool groups the data in a data pool into clusters and arranges it in the optimum sequence for production. The criteria used include delivery date, paper grade, format, color assignment, and postpress parameters such as the folding layout. HEIDELBERG is increasingly using robotics in its postpress operations. One example is the StackStar P. This industrial robot with innovative gripper technology removes signature packages from the delivery and stacks these fully automatically. Handling up to 300 packages per hour, it can keep up with any folding machine.
Some printing applications are already very close to the goal of “unmanned production”. Online print shops using the web-to-print principle are one example. Orders are channeled directly from the digital customer portal to production. Applications such as printing highly finished luxury packaging with numerous spot colors and the associated ink changes, however, are still a long way from full automation. This process has started, though. “Looking ten years into the future, lights-out manufacturing in the pressroom is a realistic prospect. The printing process will then only stop in the case of serious faults,” says Jürgen Mittmann, Senior Manager Product Management Sheetfed/Prinect.
The ideas HEIDELBERG is coming up with are not confined to automating presses and processes. The company is also constantly working on innovative business models. Take the example of subscription. This output-based model includes presses, software, consumables, service, training, and consulting. The amount customers pay is based on the number of print sheets. In this case, too, the achievements to date are not the end of the line – the next innovation is sure to come. This is something the company has proved time and again over the past 175 years.
