Print service providers can now benefit from revolutionary Anicolor technology for short and very short runs in the medium format, too. Following highly successful field tests, the Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor is now in series production and is available worldwide with immediate effect.

The Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor passed the field tests at commercial and folding carton printers with flying colors, delivering impressive results. August Faller KG was one of the companies involved. The pharmaceutical packaging specialist generated up to 80 percent less paper waste and achieved far shorter makeready times than with conventional medium-format presses.

“The Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor is ideal for cost-efficient folding carton production in the smallest of batch sizes. Fast and stable inking-up means that, with many print jobs, just 30 start-up sheets are required to achieve salable results in the highest offset quality,” says Heidelberg Product Manager Frank Süsser. That represents a key competitive advantage in sectors such as the pharmaceutical industry, where the growing number of product variants (e.g. different package sizes, dosage forms and active ingredient concentrations) results in more batch changes and some runs as short as a few hundred sheets.

Higher throughput and top quality
Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor testing was also a success at Medienhaus Reuffurth, a well-known full-service commercial printer that specializes in difficult motifs. The company uses the press for top-quality runs averaging 2,000 sheets and generates up to 65 percent less paper waste than with a conventional Speedmaster XL 75-6+L. Switching from the small to the medium format with Anicolor technology also significantly boosts its capacity.

Anicolor 90-50-50 formula delivers successful medium-format results
The first series models are now being delivered. One of these is a Speedmaster XL 75-4+L for a Dutch web-to-print company.

“The business had invested in a Speedmaster SX 52 Anicolor as recently as 2013. The revolutionary inking unit technology made such a good impression with its standardized production of mixed forms and consistently high quality that a medium-format machine soon followed,” reports Süsser.

Further customers include packaging printers from Germany, Poland and the United States, and commercial companies from Switzerland and the United States. They are all keen to benefit from up to 90 percent less paper waste, up to 50 percent shorter makeready times and up to 50 percent higher productivity. This has the added advantage of helping the environment. There are also flexibility benefits, for example when producing six-page print products or brochures in DIN long format.

Live demonstrations with perfecting press imminent
The Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor is available as a straight-printing press with up to eight inking units and a printing speed of up to 15,000 sheets per hour. It can also be equipped with a coating unit and supplied in special configurations. Customers can try out a Speedmaster XL 75-6+L Anicolor with double delivery extension at the Print Media Center in Heidelberg or a Speedmaster XL 75-5+L Anicolor at the demonstration center in Atlanta. The press is also being showcased at the “HEI Quality – Special Applications in Commercial Printing” event, which is taking place in Heidelberg in March 2014. The Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor perfecting press goes into series production in the fall.

Further information:

• “Greater Speed and Productivity” (Heidelberg News 274)
• Anicolor technology revolutionizes printing of very short runs