News

Graphic Arts Online, 6/11/2008 1:02:00 PM

Some 400,000 printers from the world over will have visited the drupa print show by the time gates close today in Düsseldorf, Germany. It was well on track to reach its target at when at the halfway point in its two-week run show organizers said more than 213,000 from 115 countries had spent 540 million Euros on print systems and equipment. The show was also a platform to a host of new technologies, especially digital web print and finishing, and numerous inkjet offerings, with Screen, Oce, Infoprint Systems, Fuji, Agfa, HP and Sun Chemical (device shown) among those demonstrating new applications.

Heidelberger Druckmachinen said it won about as many orders at this year's Drupa trade fair as it did at the 2004 fair, when the industry was emerging from a two-year crisis. During the prior show, the pressmaker received orders worth more than 800 million Euros (now worth $1.25 billion).

CEO Bernhard Schreier told Reuters that Heidelberg received 2,500 orders from 85 countries, a quarter coming from its key German market.

KBA CEO and drupa president Albrecht Bolza-Schünemann noted his firm’s orders for web offset presses considerably exceeds the results of 2004.

Schünemann reported many printers opted to purchase KBA’s 41” Rapida 105 and the Rapida 75. Top sales for KBA by country: Germany, Eastern Europe, China, North America and the Middle East. Unimac Graphics in Carlstadt, NJ, purchased the new 41” Rapida 106.

IMG Digipack GmbH, Remscheid, Germany, announced at the show it will be the first beta-test partner for Sun Chemical’s FastJet inkjet-printing press for corrugated packaging.

FastJet was developed five years ago by Sun and Inca Digital Printers. The core technology is based on fixed color arrays, with nearly 500 printheads that allow full-color printing at less than 1 sec/sq. meter. The press uses specifically designed UV-inkjet inks that are extremely stable, produce vibrant, glossy colors and are virtually odor-free, says Sun.

“It seems a long time since we demonstrated the first concept machine at drupa 2004, but we have made a lot of positive progress since,” says Stefan Slembrouck, business manager for Sun Chemical’s Digital Print Solutions division. “To validate that the initial technology was stable in a realistic corrugated environment with dust, temperature changes and humidity, we built an alpha press with a full 41” print width. This prototype was installed in the UK in 2006 and has since been demonstrated to dozens of corrugated packaging printers.”

Some big drupa purchases of note:

--Consolidated Graphics, Houston, signed a multimillion dollar agreement for as many as 36 HP Indigo digital presses—including multiple HP Indigo 7000 Digital Presses.

--Packaging and label printer Thung Hua Sinn Group, Thailand bought 32 Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 units and several automated cutting and label systems from POLAR.

--Hong Kong book printer Prosperous Printing added to its existing arsenal of Komori presses by investing nearly 2.5 million Euros in three new machines: the Lithrone LS440, LS540 and LS540 plus coater. The company exports print to the European and US markets.

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