Manroland 700 HiPrint

The commercial and packaging printing market is more challenging than ever. The customers are demanding higher quality standards, while print products are becoming increasingly extensive and complex. At the same time, fierce competition means tighter margins and little room for error and waste.

Roland 700 HiPrint is the sheetfed offset press which offers both, the largest sheet size and image area of all presses in its class. The B1+ machine processes a standard sheet size of 1,040x740mm and can also be produced in larger special sheet sizes of 1,050x740mm and 1,040x780mm.

Roland HiPrint works at 16,000 sheets per hour in straight printing and 13,000 sheets per hour in perfecting mode and can be configured with two to 12 units. The press is capable of handling substrate thickness between 0.04 mm to 1mm. The press offers a standard automated makeready, 3/4 automated plate loading, programmable ductor cycles, air-glide delivery and a Deltamatic dampening system.

Manroland launched this product in the nineties and since then more than 224 units have been installed all over India. These includes the installations at International Print-O-Pac in Delhi, HT Media in Noida, Parksons Packaging in Rudrapur, TCPL Packaging in Silvassa, Mass Packsols in Baroda, Sona Printers and Ajanta Offset in New Delhi, KiviSansho in Manipal, Abhimaani Publications, Smart Visions and Geetanjali Graphics in Bengaluru, Borkar Packaging in Nalagarh, Goa and Daman, Nebula in Goa, Nova Publications in Jalandhar, Universal Print O Pack in Baddi, Orient Press in Silvassa, Ruchira Packaging in Kala Amb, Standard Press in Sivakasi and the latest being Bhabhani Publications in Guwahati among others.

Anil Bhatia, managing director at Manroland, says: "The 700 HiPrint is a benchmark press for commercial and packaging printing, designed with value-added features to significantly reduce makeready time and deliver higher productivity. The universal acceptance of the press in both commercial and packaging printing is a reinforcement of the superior performance of the press. Moreover, the Roland 700 HiPrint is equipped with the latest technological innovations, which are only seen in the latest press models available with the competition."

Versatile 40-inch press
The Roland 700 can be configured for two- to 10-colours and a single/double-coater. The 700 HiPrint features a double-size impression cylinder and double diameter contact free transferter enabling smooth sheet transfer for enhanced print quality and application versatility.

With 10-unit and perfector, the 700 HiPrint can print five-colours on two sides in a single pass. The Roland 700 offers the smoothest sheet travel inside the press and delivery in the segment B1+ of all presses in its class, especially important for thicker substrates like board.

Bhatia says: "The printing system is equipped with tele-presence, which permits fast remote diagnosis when service is needed. The tele-presence maintenance manager module provides individualised, condition-oriented press maintenance. This unique feature results in tremendous time savings for our customers, enabling us to troubleshoot breakdowns remotely without visiting the pressroom."

The 700 HiPrint features the CIP3-compliant Pecom console. The system allows storage and retrieval of up to 5000 jobs. It also can interface with industry management information systems.

The QuickChange options are the plus points of the 700 HiPrint, as these special technologies help shorten and optimise makeready times. For example, QuickChange Surface halves the cleaning time for the ink fountain which is made with a special polymer requiring no consumables such as foils thus reducing press running costs, and QuickChange Color ensures less waste after a system restart by automatic disengagement of the ink train on press stoppage. This feature also allows variable ink flow depending on the ink distribution pattern of different jobs.

Bhatia says: "These are just two of the benefits offered by the QuickChange options, which have been designed keeping in mind printers’ demand for faster makeready and increased automation in the press to suit long run jobs. Manroland also provides its customers with Press Manager perfect software to process printing jobs even better and faster. This central order database creates print jobs fully automatically and shortens makeready times even further. In addition, the transparent workflow leads to an optimised production cycle."

Other features
The 700 HiPrint is loaded with special features which allow the printers to produce the jobs efficiently. The press is equipped with 3/4th automatic plate changing system requiring no opening of guards and reduces plate change time significantly. The electronic plate position control ensures that the plates are correctly mounted. This results in precise register from the first sheet and saves a lot of time as it does not require any special skills for plate change by the operator.

Bhatia says: "The press is equipped with several value-added features for commercial printing such as the large print size of the press as it enables printers to print the job in multiple-ups and due to this, printers can save on paper which is the most important part of the job. Due to its size 780x1,050mm, 700 HiPrint can print multiple-up images on a sheet, offering customers up to 30% extra productivity in the same run length. This is especially useful for commercial printers, allowing them to accommodate an extra row of pages in the same sheet without increasing any input cost."

Future proof
Printing companies have to make investment decisions for presses intended to stay relevant for production requirements for the next five to ten years. The Roland 700 HiPrint is designed as future-proof to safeguard customer investments over the next couple of years. With future-proof, customers who purchase a new Manroland sheetfed offset press receive an assurance that they can add retrofits within five years and thus respond to changes in demand.

The customer selects retrofit options such as cold foiling, inline coating and inspection systems. Roland inline FoilerPrindor, the cold foiling module, which was first introduced in the sheetfed presses by Manroland, can be easily retrofitted on the Roland 700 and 500 presses.

Commercial and packaging printing
HT Media’s (HTML) commercial printing division is equipped with a five-colour plus inline coater Roland 700 HiPrint. The company installed this press in 2010. This division of HT Media caters to commercial printing jobs like magazine printing, annual reports, book publishing, inserts and other value-added print applications and is common for Burda and HTML or any commercial customer.

Sunil Pandita, assistant general manager at HT Media’s commercial printing division, says: "The Roland 700 HiPrint allows the printers to produce a variety of print products using their existing press."

Roland 700 HiPrint has features which include automatic format setting, automatic ink and roller blanket washers, remote control inking and straight-to-perfecting mode changeover in less than a minute.

Pandita added: "The press has features which offers value addition, enhancing production efficiency and shortens makeready time."

International Print-O-Pac (IPP), the Noida-based printing firm has a fleet of Manroland four-, five- and six-colour sheetfed offset presses. These presses churn out packaging and commercial jobs. The first Manroland press was installed in 1993.

Rishabh Singhvi, director at  IPP, says: "We have a fleet of Manroland presses, some with perfecting and some with coating. Certain presses are dedicated to packaging and a few to commercial printing but mostly it is packaging printing. 700 HiPrint is durable and delivers quality and consistency. The press is loaded with special features which complement the kind of jobs we print. The press is equipped with features like auto-plate loading, new feeder design, non-stop delivery, ColorChange and Telepresence among others."