More than 400 guests from all over the world attended the Packaging Day hosted by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) at the Wiesloch-Walldorf site during May.
Under the slogan Think out of the Box, they witnessed the premiere of the Primefire 106 – what up until then was only available to see in customers’ print shops and in the laboratory environment is now also installed in the Print Media Center Packaging, and thus completes the extensive demo range in the world’s biggest demo centre for packaging solutions. Heidelberg is the only manufacturer to integrate offset and digital printing, including finishing via the Prinect workflow, and is opening up new business models for packaging printing.
‘With this range, Heidelberg cements its position as the leader in packaging printing and provides answers to current and future requirements in the age of digitisation. We make our customers more productive and therefore also more profitable,’ explained Rainer Hundsdörfer, chief executive officer of Heidelberg, in his welcome address.
This was impressively confirmed by the two managing directors Thomas Pfefferle and Martin Bruttel from colordruck Baiersbronn. colordruck is a decade-long customer of Heidelberg and has seen its business models go through many successful evolutions. The Primefire 106 has been installed at colordruck since the end of last year and has been undergoing field testing since mid-January 2018.
The Primefire offers colordruck the advantage of high-quality digital printing in combination with sheet finishing using existing die-cutting tools in 3b format. The packaging service provider, which operates throughout Europe, has been producing packaging using digital printing since 2017.
In its new ‘Packaging Digital’ division, colordruck offers customised and personalised packaging through to mass customisation via its online shop ‘designyourpackaging.de’. In this way colordruck is opening up new customer groups. In its offset printing arm, colordruck continues to produce premium packagings using four highly automated Speedmaster machines from the latest generation.
The Packaging Day offered visitors a platform for getting new ideas and inspiration for their current and future business models. Three information tours – ‘Packaging as you like’, ‘Operational Excellence’, and ‘Special Applications’ – addressed the trends in the industry and provided a comprehensive presentation of the corresponding solution from Heidelberg.
In addition to demonstrating overall solutions, topics such as navigated printing in large format with the Speedmaster XL 145 six-colour press with coating unit were addressed. The topic of postpress packaging showed economical solutions for postpress requirements. The Primefire 106 also had its own exhibit on the topic of industrial digital printing.
Lifecycle Solutions with the components Saphira consumables and service are an essential part of Heidelberg’s solution offering for achieving top quality, productivity, and production reliability. Saphira has established itself as a quality brand.
Brand owners want maximum attention for their products at the point of sale through differentiation and embellishments. The information tour ‘Special Applications’ inspired visitors with Heidelberg’s application know-how and economical ways of achieving embellishments.
For example, the Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor UV with twelve units produces premium cosmetic packagings including inline embossing within the shortest time. This delivers maximum productivity. Thanks to fully automatic, simultaneous plate changes, the large Wallscreen XL 2, and navigated printing, job changes can be performed very quickly even with highly complex embellishments.
The Speedmaster XL 106-8-P+LYYL showcased the full range of embellishments by effectively producing premium folding cartons with matte, gloss, and UV coatings.
Cost-effective embellishments with hot foil, holograms, and embossing were on display on the versatile Promatrix 106 FC which is now available with the optical sheet registration system, MasterSet to ensure perfect alignment between image and embellishment. The Diana Eye 55 demonstrated how effective offline inspection can be used to check how highly embellished products meet the highest quality standards and avoid expensive follow-up costs.
