Integration, Automation, Hybrid Print
“Instead of offering the customer isolated applications, we have connected the complete printing system with our core competences, folding technology and Workflow networking, and that from the very beginning” is how Stadler explains the demands that manroland web systems place upon themselves as the lead-ing integration partner. Low make-ready times as demonstrated by the folding systems FormerLine and FoldLine are obligatory in this regard. Another central integration tool is MasterQ, the software “Imposer” which coordinates imposi-tion.

With their inline finishing units and software solutions, manroland web systems have managed to digitalise Workflows to an extent that high copy runs can be efficiently and flexibly produced. The cardinal element here is the WorkflowBridge software which delivers clear job instructions to the folding unit FoldLine resp. the book block solution FormerLine, for a post press processing which is volume variable, and indeed for the complete production.

A vision is becoming a reality: Each incoming print job is checked and immedi-ately assigned to the production unit where it can be produced most economi-cally and efficiently. Framework conditions of the job parameters or even pro-duction conditions change? No problem: Because digital printing and offset systems in any printing house can be linked in the superordinate solution “MasterQ”. It automates and updates job scheduling permanently.

Successful Live Demos
A digital workflow made up of a Kodak Prosper 6000S Hybrid and the FoldLine as a flexible inline folding unit with many varied product applications, was very impressive at  drupa 2016 in Düsseldorf. Using the new digital print reel splicer from manroland web systems, pre-printed reels were processed in alternating offset and inkjet modes, and indeed partly digitally imprinted, and guided to the FoldLine. The stacking of the produced products such as newspapers, books, booklets and brochures was taken on by a Rima system. The changeover between, as an example, three different successive newspaper versions was carried out at full speed “on-the-fly” enabling smooth transfer from one version to the next. The individual jobs were connected to become a continuous production run via MasterQ.

Customer Satisfaction Worldwide
manroland web systems has developed its digital workflows independent of printing machine manufacturers, for reel offset and digital print environments. The overriding principles are production variability, low cost production of small partial runs/regional editions and individualisation, all of which enable new busi-ness models. The Swiss printing house Mengis Druck produces the first purely digitally printed daily newspaper, the “Walliser Bote” in the evenings on a FoldLine-Workflow, and during the day they produce e.g. advertising inserts. The French Imprimerie de l’Avesnois produce their weekly newspaper “L’Observateur” including regional editions with the FoldLine and the “WorkflowBridge”. The objective is strongly individualised newspapers. Rotolito Lombarda, Milan, uses the FoldLine System in Inline as well as Offline opera-tion to produce newspapers, brochures, magazines and individual book signa-tures. This complete product flexibility in inline finishing is also relied upon by Masar Printing & Publishing in Dubai, United Arabi Emirates.

The book block solution FormerLine is one answer to the booming Print-on-Demand book market. While one FormerLine after another takes care of eco-nomically viable book production at the location of the Chinese book printing giant Hucais in Dongguan, the huge German book printer CPI sees the FormerLine as an efficient solution for digital four-colour book printing. In Brazil at the beginning of 2016, the educational book-publishing house FTD Educação started production on FormerLine. The Polish company Legra has discovered an additional production field for the FomerLine: The unit is impressively producing calendars.

(https://www.manroland-web.com)