Graph Expo: 'Heavy Iron'Comes Up Light

Gone are the days when sheetfed offset presses dominated the Graph Expo show floor. The high costs involved to ship and set up a large, multicolor offset press at a show—coupled with a dearth of revolutionary technology developments to showcase—makes it hard to justify the expenditure.

By my count there were only four offset presses actually running at Graph Expo:

• A five-color Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 52 with Anicolor zoneless short inking technology and aqueous coater, able to run six, 300-sheet jobs on different substrates, with one operator, in 30 minutes.
• A Presstek 52DI 52cm digital offset press, which can go from digital file to printed sheet in 10 minutes.
• A small-format, two-color BaumPrint 18 press in Baum's booth.
• A second BaumPrint 18 in Mitsubishi Imaging's exhibit operating as part of a platemaking demonstration.

That's not to say that exhibitors like KBA North America, Komori America, MLP U.S.A., Goss International and others didn't have a presence this year. It's just that they opted for video presentations, interactive displays, print samples and standalone press consoles/units to emphasize new developments, enhanced press monitoring and consumables.

Even the five-color Heidelberg SM 52 Anicolor was just one component in the workflow presentation of a cross-media promotion Heidelberg developed for a fictional clothing store called belle&beau. The marketing services campaign included a custom Prinect online storefront, short-run brochures printed on the SM 52 Anicolor, letters and catalogs with variable data output using a Heidelberg-branded Linoprint C901 color digital press, and in-store posters and displays produced on an EFI Rastek H652 UV flatbed inkjet printer. Prinect Color Toolbox ensured color matching across the three output platforms.

Heidelberg also demonstrated the new generation of its Prinect Image Control spectrophotometric color management system, specifically designed for printers seeking to comply with G7 methods and ISO standards for printing according to grey balance control.

The Systemservice area of Heidelberg's booth featured Remote Monitoring, which enables early detection of machine system failures before problems occur, based on continuous data capture from the press.

KBA North America devoted booth space to educating attendees about its Service Select programs designed for efficiency analysis, audits and press operator training. A video also highlighted the company's presence at drupa in Germany. Featured in the video was KBA's entry into high-volume digital printing with the KBA RotaJET 76 inkjet web press.

Also using Graph Expo to highlight its entry at drupa into the inkjet digital printing space, Komori America offered a simulated "live" demo, via an interactive hook-up with its production plant in Japan, of its new 29˝ Impremia IS29 sheetfed inkjet machine equipped with hybrid UV technology. Developed in conjunction with Konica Minolta, the IS29 operates in straight or perfecting mode and can print on substrates from 60-lb. paper to 18-pt. board, without requiring any specially treated papers. The bizhub PRESS C8000 digital press was promoted by Komori, as well.

Also featured at Graph Expo was Komori's KHS-AI software that enables a Komori press to achieve ink and register stability in just 20 sheets. In addition, the company's H-UV curing system makes it possible to go from the press directly to bindery.