Doug Schardt of printing press manufacturer Komori America discusses the importance of automation on sheetfed offset presses. Printers are interested most in plate changers, blanket washers, and camera monitoring systems, all of which he describes as “de-facto choices” among sheetfed offset printing press purchasers.
Doug Schardt
Today’s advancements in sheetfed offset printing press technology greatly increase output productivity, minimize paper waste and makeready times, and enable shorter runs. Automation also reduces the labor requirements to complete what had been manual tasks in the printing industry.
Digital presses are making in-roads into offset printing territory, but by no means is offset dying, according to offset vendors. by CAROLINE MILLER IT SEEMS as if all everyone is talking about lately is the rapid growth of the digital printing market. And as the output quality of digital presses comes closer to that of offset printing, some are even questioning the future viability of offset. Not Mike Grego, though. "Offset printing is alive and doing well," says Grego, marketing manager for Sakurai USA. "Digital direct-to-paper has taken a bite into the small-format, short-run work that was typically performed on duplicator presses. The majority
Small-format sheetfed presses now boast many of the features previously only available on larger machines. As the saying goes, "good things come in small packages." This is especially true for small-format presses. They provide a quality product with fast turnaround time, while meeting the requirements of a tight budget. Take A.B.Dick's 9995A-ICS, for example. A line extension of its two-color 9995 offset press, the 9995A has a semi-automatic plate loading feature for metal and polyester plates. The Ink Control System (ICS) allows for automatic adjusting of the ink fountains. "The 9995A-ICS gives a printer the ability and automation to produce four-color process work