manroland “PIQ” Tour to Japan
October 16, 2009 (Beijing) - The annual manroland “PIQ (Partners in Quality)“ event provides the customers with the hard- earned opportunities of learning from and being inspired by the world leading printing enterprises. During the long holiday of China 60th Anniversary and mid- autumn festival, manroland invited 19 VIP customers from East，South and North China to attend Japan Graphic Arts Show 2009 (JGAS) and pay visits to the advanced printing and packaging enterprises in Japan. During the one-week fruitful Japanese tour, the customers experienced and learned the advanced printing technology of the industry, as well as shared with each other the invaluable management experience.
The Inspiration of Large Format Plus Printing
Located in Saitama, the suburbs of Tokyo, Japan, Tanaka Sanyo is engaged in large format plus printing, such as outdoor advertisements, posters and POP products. Except the two old 9 format presses, they have installed the brand new manroland press, ROLAND 906-8LV six colours with UV coating, whose printing format reaches 130cmx185cm. Most of the orders are short-run printing, from a few hundreds to two thousand sheets. The customers are mainly all kinds of designing companies and advertising companies. The demand for high quality outdoor advertisements and posters are enormous. “The larger, the better” is the key to success for Tanaka Sanyo!
Highly efficiency of short run job and the application of CIP4 (JDF)
Shinkosha Printing is located in Shibuya, Tokyo, where land is a very limited resource. With the area of only 650 square meters, three manroland perfecting sheetfed press: ROLAND 704 four colours are installed in the three-storey premise, dealing with the commercial printing of short run books and magazines, mainly medical publications. It is very hard to obtain substantial profits in this printing line. Thus Shinkosha Printing adopts CIP4, the networked process management to improve productivity, and reduce invalid down time. This move proved to be successful.
The president of the company proudly showed us the top honour they won in the process application: CIPPI (CIP4 International Print Production Innovation) Awards 2009 Winner and Asia Pacific 2009 Winner. At the same time, he skilfully demonstrated the highly efficient process management: manroland PECOM system (now it is called printnet). The system networks all print processes and integrates the innovative design, prepress CtP, press and postpress all together.
The future of sheetfed press - ROLAND 700 DirectDrive
Currently, internet and digital printing are hot topics widely discussed in the industry. What kind of impacts would they bring to the conventional sheetfed printing? Seeing the trend of individuation and short run jobs in commercial printing, what should the conventional sheetfed printing enterprises do? As one of the world top manufacturers of sheetfed press, manroland has invested in research and development since 2000, and exhibited its prototype at DRUPA2004. Its core technology lies in direct-driven plate cylinders, as well as the simultaneous cleaning and plate changing process that can be done during the job changes. It is really the champion of short plate printing.
Flying from Tokyo to Fukuoka to pay a visit to Matsumoto in Moji, customers witness this technology at work in a pressroom setting. The company has the first ROLAND 708P DirectDrive Eight Colour with rolling device in Asia. The machine was unveiled to the public for the first time at IGAS in Tokyo in 2007. At the exhibition centre of Matsumoto, we saw with our own eyes how efficient it was when the changing of eight plates was done within one minute. The advanced technology of ROLAND 700 DirectDrive will be widely introduced in China in one or two years. At that time, there will be one more option for those who prefer the highly efficient short run jobs.
High-end Carton Packaging and Direct Printing of Corrugated Sheet Printing
Crown Package Osaka Factory is located in Nara, the ancient capital. Its forte is the production of high-end cartons. With six factories and more than 10 business units, its annual sales volume reaches 35 billion Japanese Yen. Its Osaka Factory that customers were visiting has about 250 staff members with the annual sales revenue of seven billion Japanese Yen. The equipment installed are two corrugated sheet production lines, two sheetfed presses, six newspaper webs and postpress processing device (such as mode cutting…etc.). One of the sheetfed presses is ROLAND 905-6LV Five Colour with Coating. Its format is 100cmx140cm.
The press is equipped with the most advanced and amazing technology: besides the high- end configurations that are bundled with, it is also equipped with higher base of the machine, AUPASYS, InlineInspector, direct printing device of corrugated sheet printing, as well as the combined printing of UV and water base glue printing. This is the role model of excellent printing machines.
It is said that in the direct printing field of G and F corrugated sheets, Crown Package has 45% shares of the whole Japanese market. The field of direct printing of G and F corrugated sheets in China is still blank due to the current quality problem of sheet materials, even though manroland ROLAND 900 is also equipped with the printing device of corrugated sheets. What’s more, Crown Package attaches great importance to the environmental protection.
One could see it by these two figures: one is the recovery rate of used papers reaches 110%; the other one is the utilization ratio of used papers is up to 98%.
Japan Graphic Arts Show 2009 (JGAS)
When compared with the International Graphic Arts Show (IGAS), the scale of JGAS is much smaller. It is mainly for the Japanese market. The participants are mainly the Japanese press manufacturers. Due to the impact by the global financial crisis, exhibitors did not show their newest printing technology, but common 4 colour presses for exhibition.
The tour made their last stop in Osaka. At the last gathering, all the customers sang and danced happily while enjoying the charming night views of the city. manroland “PIQ” Tour to Japan has successfully come to an end with the laughter of the customers.
Captions:
The group picture of all participants of manroland “PIQ” Tour to Japan was taken in front of Matsumoto.
Eric Wong, General Manager of Sheetfed Division of manroland China (the second from right), and James Zhang, General Manager of Sheetfed Division in manroland North China (the fourth from left), together with the customers, visited Japan Graphic Arts Show 2009 (JGAS).
