One of the six manroland Colorman presses had been equipped with a Prosper S30 printing head in order to imprint variable data by the digital printing process at full production speed into the offset newspapers. The Kodak stream technology (Continuous Inkjet) reaches a speed of 15 m/s. With this installation, the printing centre, as worldwide pilot user of this technology, has laid the foundation for personalising the newspaper.

The high-speed imprinting solution permits, for example, adapting advertising campaigns to local conditions by enriching static advertising contents with variable  information and image components, without havingto interrupt production for plate changing. Prize games can be organised with continuous lottery ticket numbers, variable QR codes and changing URLs provide the link-up with online media. Such features can increase the attractiveness of the newspaper and promote reader loyalty.

It is also possible to use the technology for editorial purposes, e.g. to update news items during production or include latest sports results.

Drensek Thomas

Thomas Drensek, works manager at the Ahrensburg offset printing plant, is always to the fore in cases of innovations and the application of new technologies. He and his team  worked on this project together with experts from Kodak and manroland web systems. manroland managed the integration of the Prosper S30 system into the press automation concept.

Kodak press release