India's first Speedmaster SX 52 Anicolor in Mangalore

India's first Speedmaster SX 52 Anicolor in Mangalore

Mangalore-based Prakash Offset hosted an open house to showcase India’s first Speedmaster SX 52 Anicolor press installed at its Kodialbail premises

Prakash Offset’s PR Nayak thanked the Heidelberg India team headed by general manager, Peter Rego, for the company's endless support since 1983 when the print firm’s first Heidelberg machine was commissioned

The Anicolor installed at Prakash Offset seems to be poised to handle the medium run print jobs such as those with quantities ranging from 100 sheets onwards

During the Anicolor demonstration moderated by B Saseendran(r), Prakash offset’s operators printed five jobs each of 125 sheets in thirty five minutes including makeready and changeover times

In a shift of eight hours this new press churns out more than 40 jobs irrespective of the sheet size and the substrate

Peter Rego (l), general manager, Heidelberg India explained Anicolor's zoneless inking system

At the heart of Anicolor is the anilox inking system with a chamber doctor blade instead of a conventional roller train

Conventional offset versus Anicolor. The anilox system applies a metered exact amount of ink on every revolution thus there is minimum colour variation

A 50 per cent reduction in makeready time compared to conventional offset presses, due to the anilox inking system and no requirement for ink density adjustment – even with colour and register inline adjustment tools

With full preset and automation in terms of a fully automatic simultaneous plate change and format presetting, it’s basically a push button technology. It just needs to be backed up with a well-tuned pre-press with colour management and high-volume plate output capacity

Heidelberg’s Ashokan Krishnamoorthy demonstrated the working of Heidelberg Suprasetter A75 CTP

An inside view of the Suprasetter A75

Ashokan explains the 90:50:50 principle of Anicolor. He said, “90% less make-ready sheets. The anilox inking system eliminates the need to adjust the ink keys to match colours, therefore, 50% faster makeready. The above two results in 50% more productivity."

Explaining the technology, Udo Fiebiger, regional business manager, Heidelberg Asia Pacific, says, "The cylinders are all the same diameter meaning there are no ghosting issues on the printed sheet. The temperature of anilox roller is regulated in order to make any minor density changes."

Saseendran stressed on the investment component of Anicolor press as well as the price performance balance. He touched upon ROI analysis as to the time and results with regard to Anicolor performance during short runs

Nayak’s nephew and partner at the firm, Anand Prabhu, feels that when a print run crosses 120-130 sheets, the economics are in favour of offset. He says, "Earlier we used to convert such short run jobs to offset and deliver them from our Baikampadi facility. However, this meant four to five hours of turnaround time. With Anicolor’s shorter makeready times we are able to deliver the same job in 20 minutes."

At the open house, the Heidelberg team was at pains to describe Anicolor as a solution for medium run commercial print jobs such as those with quantities ranging from 100 sheets and above

In the picture are Gulati brothers(l) of Galaxy Offset discussing Anicolor's print consistency across the sheet width, which was achieved within 20 makeready sheets

Sanjay Bajaj of Bengaluru-based digital print firm PrintXpress, examines the Anicolor-printed sheet during the demonstration

Repro India's Ganesh Khandare, who heads the digital division of the company, was impressed with the machine's fast job changeovers. According to him the USP is Anicolor's low footprint

Prakash Offset's Nayak discussed infrastructural and logistical issues in Mangalore with Jaimin Patel of Ahmedabad-based Art O Print

The second session of the open house was a visit to Prakash Offset’s second unit in Baikampadi industrial area. Today, the company’s shopfloor houses eight Heidelberg kit including the Anicolor installed in January 2014 and a Xerox 1000 (at Kodialbail plant) for short runs

Prakash Offset was established in 1983 by Nayak's uncle, Shanker Prabhu, who had a flourishing beedi business. Prabhu was looking for a solution to timely printing of beedi labels and suggested setting up a printing press to get the beedi labels printed in-house

Having acquired a brand new two-colour offset press, a cutting machine, and a camera set-up, Prabhu was guided through the learning curve for print technology and business module by many of his own clients

Since then the company has been adding brand new Heidelberg presses to its arsenal

In 2012, the company installed a Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 102 four-colour press and a Heidelberg Suprasetter 105 CTP

The Suprasetter assists the SM 102 and XL 75, comissioned in 2008, to handle over 10 large-volume book printing applications and packaging jobs for beedi labels

Over 25 commercial and digital printers from all across India were present at the roadshow

The evening culminated with thought provoking technical presentations by the Heidelberg team