Business

Speed of makeready was the hot Drupa topic, with several manufacturers announcing methods for trimming changeovers, but Jo Francis finds that you need more than a bit of kit to save time.

In the high-octane world of Formula One racing, a pit stop can make or break a driver’s race. While printers can but dream of the sub-10 second changeover times achieved in F1, it’s fair to say that making makereadies as efficient as possible is a key profit driver for many businesses. Nowadays, more than ever before, this area is the focus of huge attention by both press manufacturers and their customers.

"I can honestly say that not one customer came up to me at Drupa to talk about running speeds," says Manroland sales director Gary Doman. How quickly a press can makeready was the most important topic for the majority of customers."

In the B1 space, there have been developments aplenty from the major manufacturers. At Drupa, Heidelberg board member Jürgen Rautert made the bold statement that the three-minute makeready was a reality. Meanwhile, KBA claimed a world-record performance at the show by producing 15 separate jobs (each of 520 sheets) in under an hour on an eight-colour Rapida 106. In addition, Komori launched its KHS-AI advanced intelligence system for sheetfed presses as part of its On Demand Changeover Theatre, while Mitsubishi trumpeted the Diamond V3000 series and SimulChanger simultaneous plate change.

Simultaneous jobs
Manroland, not to be left out, made a big splash with its DirectDrive system, which, as the name implies, allows each press unit to be driven directly. This is thanks to the development of a patented double-declutching system. The system has resulted in a step-change in press productivity. Instead of processes happening sequentially, the DirectDrive allows them to occur simultaneously. For example, the blanket and impression cylinders can be washed while plates are loading at the same time. "Effectively the plate change time is zero because they’re going on at the same time as the blanket wash, Doman explains. You can drive the whole machine from the conventional main drive, or you can drive the plate cylinders and ink train by DirectDrive, or you can drive it using a combination. In the case of a complete colour change, you can drive the ink train separately and have the top half of the machine running at a different speed to the bottom."

With DirectDrive, each unit is fitted with a motor that is a direct descendant of the motors used on its Lithoman web presses, making Manroland confident about the robustness and reliability of its approach. Should the worst happen and a motor fail, the user can quickly engage all the clutches and drive the press conventionally. All this extra hardware comes at a price, though, and one of the changes that’s emerged following Drupa is a result of customers requesting a more appealing return on investment. For example, features such as QuickChange Air will be an optional extra, rather than a standard part of the DirectDrive specification.

Practical benefits
While DirectDrive had its first major public outing at Drupa, the first machine in the UK has been up and running for the past few months at St Ives Direct Crayford. Group technical director John Charnock did his sums carefully before selecting the configuration. "With DirectDrive, we are replacing makeready time with saleable time. For example, across a shift we could save 15 minutes on each of 10 different jobs, so that’s a couple of hours running time saved – it’s effectively a press and a half." St Ives has also bought another Roland 700 for a different group facility and, in that case, opted for the standard HiPrint configuration as the press will only be required to do three or four makereadies a day.

Crayford’s work is a mix of batch and short-run jobs, meaning the site can happily produce runs of just 500 sheets on its new press. Charnock emphasises that an investment of this nature needs to be examined in the wider context of the whole factory workflow. "One of the challenges with fast makeready is the other logistics around the press, such as having the paper ready for the next job. Those systems have to be right, otherwise you lose the benefit."

The electronic dockets filled in by press minders have also been simplified, to allow all the necessary procedures to be completed during a reduced makeready window.

At KBA, the DriveTronic SPC (simultaneous plate changing) also employs motors on the units, but in this case the press still has a driveshaft. The motors allow the plate cylinder position to be realigned independently, so plates can be changed at the same time as the blanket wash. Executive sales director Mark Nixon points out that a combination of sophisticated features adds up to a major makeready benefit. "With DriveTronic Ident, a unique identification is burnt into the gripper margin on each plate. The press reads the identifiers and it won’t run if the plates have been loaded incorrectly. More importantly, the press also reads registration marks and positions the cylinders in line with the first cylinder and this means the first sheet printed is in register. This is how we achieved that Drupa makeready record."

This, combined with QualiTronic inline sheet inspection and colour measurement, means that achieving colour and register can be cut to just a couple of minutes, according to Nixon. "It shortens the whole process and reduces waste. It’s changed perceptions of the litho-digital break point."

The first KBA DriveTronic SPC press in Britain and Ireland, a 10-colour Rapida 105N, has been running at Dublin’s Brunswick Press since the end of last year and managing director Peter Allman has seen a drastic reduction in changeover times. "The changeover time on the standard press might be 20 minutes. This can be reduced to just one minute on the new press. Allman acknowledges that, in practice, the time involved is more likely to be three or four minutes, but as 60% of the company’s work is multi-section short-run magazines and books, he says this kind of saving is very significant".

Examining the benefits in the context of a company’s typical work mix is essential. "Theoretically, you could be looking at 15 jobs an hour if the format is the same, but how often does that happen?" explains Nixon. "We did another test that involved six jobs of 1,500 sheets, with six different formats on six different papers." Three further UK sales of the DriveTronic Rapida remain under wraps – for the time being.

Step change
Heidelberg’s product manager for B1 Gernot Keller believes the new generation of highly automated presses will result in a step change that can be likened to the impact made by the advent of long perfectors in the 1990s. "With the Speedmaster XL105, the speed and extraordinarily short makereadies represent a real shift. The press is more productive and can potentially replace two older long perfectors," says Keller.

Heidelberg’s solution for simultaneous plate changing is Autoplate XL, which was shown as part of the "one pass productivity" demonstration at Drupa with the aforementioned three-minute makeready, but this won’t ship until the beginning of next year. However, Keller believes that the most important area of focus is press control, specifically ink and register. "This typically takes longer than just a plate change and is something customers should look closely at."

He states that, on the current install base of long perfectors, a good average makeready time would be 25-30 minutes, of which around 50% of the time would be taken up getting ink and register right. This time is reduced to around seven minutes on the latest Speedmaster XL105, with its standard Prinect Press Center control console configuration. Since Drupa, Intellistart artificial intelligence software has also become part of the standard XL105 setup. This evaluates the current job status and the new job status and decides what needs to change on the press. The changes takes place automatically and the press will inform or guide the operator if an intervention is required. And Keller says that things really take off when the optional Inpress Control inline colour measuring option is added, allowing makeready time to be reduced to "literally two or three minutes – it really is a completely different possibility when it comes to time saving. You can save potentially 10 minutes per job."

Northampton-based Sterling Press has added Inpress Control to its second 10-colour Speedmaster XL105, ordered at Drupa, having already halved makeready times and reduced paper waste with its first machine. After extensive trials, the company is convinced makeready times and paper waste can be reduced still further with Inpress Control.

The newest entrant in the B1 sphere is Ryobi, which has transported some of the makeready features from its existing B3 and B2 presses up to the larger size, while at the same time keeping prices competitive. An example is its ink volume setting software with programme inking, which will compare the current and coming job and make short-cuts in the settings. Plates don’t have to be pre-bent before being placed on the press, either. "We have a number of options that can influence makeready, including semi- or fully automatic plate change, but we keep things optional because it really does depend on the customer’s work mix," says Neil Handforth, sales director at Ryobi’s UK distributor Apex Digital Graphics.

Other factors count
This is a point that is echoed by Miles Linney, managing director at Mansfield’s Linney Group. "Makereadies are the most important thing on the whole press, but it’s super important you get everything to the press in an absolutely correct manner. The real thing the issue opens up is world-class manufacturing principles about how you schedule."

The new breed of fully automatic press behemoths is also likely to spark a fresh debate about press-manning levels. Does a 10-colour press need a minder and an assistant, or a minder and half an assistant? Or perhaps assistants can run the presses while a floating quality manager oversees production across two or three machines? Perhaps a company can reduce overheads by going from three shifts to two? It’s clear that advances in makeready times really do throw up some interesting issues for printers planning press investments that go way beyond the cost of the press itself. Not forgetting that it isn’t actually a race, as one printer points out: "If the client is happy and you’re making money, does it really matter if you’re making ready in three minutes or three hours?"

MAKEREADY: WHO DOES WHAT?

Heidelberg
Prinect Press Center combines press operation, colour and register control. Intellistart allows the next job to be prepared while the current job is printing, with a potential increase in annual production capacity of up to 8%. Prinect Inpress Control automatically measures and controls colour and register on the fly and at any speed, so the press does not need to be stopped for either makeready or monitoring of the production run. Autoplate XL simultaneous plate change will be available from the beginning of next year.

KBA
The DriveTronic family of makeready enhancing features includes a simultaneous plate changing system that allows plates to be changed at the same time as blanket and cylinder washing. The press is able to perform up to six different makeready processes simultaneously, slashing between 40-60% off the time taken for job changeovers, depending on the complexity of the makeready.

Komori
KHS-AI, self-learning fast print start system allows presses to reach 12,000sph in just five seconds. Smart Feedback allows single touch adjustments if required, with the new result attained in just 20 sheets. The fully automatic plate change system has a new plasma-coated surface that reduces the likelihood of plate deformation. New blanket-washing system cuts the time taken by 40%.

Manroland
DirectDrive technology cuts makeready times by as much as 60% compared to a conventional press. Plate change takes place at the same time as the three to four minute blanket and impression cylinder wash. The top and bottom half of the press can be driven at different speeds, which cuts the time taken for functions such as a complete ink change. QuickChange modules further reduce makeready times.

Mitsubishi
New features on the Diamond V3000 make makeready 40% faster than on the old system. Each cylinder is driven by individual motors. Blanket, ink and impression cylinders can be washed in parallel. SimulChanger fully automatic plate changing system enables all printing plates to be removed and mounted simul­taneously in less than 75 seconds. An optional Color Navigator system simplifies colour adjustment. A short acceleration phase results in start-up speed of 10,000sph.