“Operation of our products must be intuitive and efficient. Customer benefit is, therefore, our main objective in design development,” said Stephan Plenz, member of the management board responsible for equipment at Heidelberg. “Digitisation and design innovations from Heidelberg thus constitute a perfect, uniform solution. This is impressively highlighted by winning the iF Design Award 2017 for the Primefire 106 and Prinect Press Center XL 2.”

The Industrie Forum Design is an internationally-known award for excellent design innovations. Since 1953, the award has been presented annually in different categories for achievements in the area of product design. The award is presented by International Forum Design (iF), based in Hanover.

The Heidelberg Primefire 106, the first industrial digital printing system for B1 format, is the best of both worlds with respect to its design as well: it combines the flexibility of digital printing with the reliability and precision of offset printing.

The new digital printing unit integrates harmoniously into the design of the Speedmaster XL106 press platform. Due to its clean structure, operators can familiarise themselves with the machine very quickly. Ergonomics is the main focal point aimed at facilitating easy operation of all functions. Moreover, the machine control station and the print output form a single unit, ensuring that the printed sheet is automatically presented directly to the operator for assessment on the table, without the inconvenience of sheets having to be pulled.

The Prinect Press Center XL 2 is the new generation of the machine control station. Its detailed ergonomic design ensures simple, uniform operator guidance for Heidelberg digital and offset printing systems. Clean, geometric shapes define the work areas. Additional functions and dialogs can be called up quickly via the high-resolution Wallscreen XL. The patented assistance system Intellistart 2 automatically generates all the steps required for intelligent job changes and provides maximum transparency across all active and queued processes. Operation and selection are performed via the integrated touchpad. The intuitive user software at the multi-touchscreen with its user-friendly menus reliably guides the operator through all the various processes. The newly-developed standard daylight lamp facilitates non-glare illumination for optimum sheet assessment.