Shrinking Presses, Rising Profits

Productivity gains with larger printing formats can extend beyond the pressroom, notes Cerfontaine, of MAN Roland.

"A key advantage of larger-format presses is that they accelerate the finishing process, which is still very labor-intensive and expensive," he says. "Folding one 73˝ sheet into a signature in a single operation, adding a cover and stitching it is faster and more profitable than printing, folding and gathering eight signatures of 29˝ or four signatures of 40˝. Thanks to the high level of automation, the makeready times are the same for all formats."