BY IVARS SARKANS
Editor's note: This is the first of a 2-part column on drupa 2004, the largest printing show in the world. It was held in Dusseldorf, Germany in May with a record 1,862 exhibitors. The second part will focus on digital technologies showcased at the event.
When drupa 2004 closed, a high proportion of the displayed machinery sported "Sold" signs, and exhibitors appeared to be pleased with the results of their participation in this industry extravaganza. The drupa shows typically include not only the latest designs and innovations in printing equipment and related systems, but also a sizeable number of prototypes and technology demonstrations that provide a long-term perspective on changes and opportunities in the printing industry.
Supplier Restructuring
The previous show, drupa 2000, took place during a peak period for the printing industry in terms of sales and profitability. Since then, the last three years have been challenging for both printers and equipment suppliers, and clearly there's excess worldwide capacity to build presses and finishing machinery.
In a presentation on industry trends, Regis Delmontagne, president of NPES, an association of U.S. printing suppliers, indicated that member sales of equipment and supplies have declined by approximately 25 percent since the 1999-2000 peaks. As a result, the big news at drupa was restructuring by some of the major industry suppliers and a trend toward more alliances, partnerships, marketing agreements and consolidation. Printers may see more focused product lines from some suppliers, but the intensity of competition among suppliers and the pace of technology advances won't be affected.
The most extensive restructuring was announced by Heidelberg, one of the largest exhibitors and a major supplier of printing equipment and systems worldwide. The company's digital printing equipment design and manufacturing operations have been sold to the Eastman Kodak Company. The restructuring indicates the special challenges faced in the digital printing equipment market and the serious imbalance between supply capacity and demand in commercial printing and newspaper web offset presses.
At drupa 2000, Xerox launched a program to sell offset presses with two types of direct imaging (DI) machines under the Xerox brand. Restructuring of Xerox businesses since then has resulted in discontinuation of the offset press program in favor of a focus on digital printing equipment and related software. At drupa 2004, Xerox launched an effort to capture a larger share of the high-speed, web-fed monochrome digital printing market and introduced new models that gradually will update the DocuTech™ product line.
A sign of likely future challenges for established equipment suppliers was the strong presence of Chinese firms at drupa 2004. Their exhibits featured a wide variety of presses, finishing equipment, plates and other supplies. Some Chinese exhibitors touted ISO 9000 certification of their factories and their licenses to use the latest technology of partner firms in Japan. Most Chinese exhibitors were looking for distributors in Europe and the United States or opportunities to produce machines, parts or materials for established European and U.S. equipment suppliers.
Prepress and Workflow Trends
Unlike previous drupa shows, it was difficult to find film imagesetters, and some remaining machines were displayed as polyester plate output devices. In offset printing, the industry has clearly shifted to computer-to-metal plate (CTMP) systems.
A variety of new and updated workflow software was on display, designed to link all printed project participants from buyers to designers, agencies, prepress service suppliers, pressrooms and binderies. The ability to "plug into" common digital workflow systems, and compatibility with the latest workflow-enabling standards such as Job Definition Format (JDF) and the PDF file format, was a major theme. The ability to link all printing plant equipment and print project participants so orders can flow automatically through a plant and an electronic job ticket can drive automated machine setup tasks is still mainly a vision.
In conventional offset production, functions such as color control, trapping, screening and setting of press ink keys have been automated, but the overall offset print manufacturing process still depends on extensive manual intervention by skilled operators. The one exception evident at drupa 2004 was digital printing, where integration of high-volume imaging and finishing devices with order planning and prepress tasks is so extensive that this method of printing is becoming a true computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) process.
Offset Press Trends
The large number of sheetfed offset presses and variety of new models at drupa 2004 indicated strong worldwide demand for these machines. This is partly due to declining print run sizes in the industry and a large installed base of older sheetfed offset presses that are obsolete compared with the higher speeds and quick setup features of new models. Some of the latest sheetfed presses have paper feed rates that exceed 500 feet per minute. Sheetfed press suppliers indicated that most of their current sales are full-feature machines that typically replace two older and less productive presses. With automatic plate changing, blanket washing and resetting of feeder and delivery units, job changeover times in drupa 2004 demonstrations were less than 8 minutes, even on 8- and 10-color sheetfed presses.
drupa 2004 exhibits showed a trend toward extending sheetfed offset press capabilities to packaging and special applications, from printing on very light paper to heavy board and plastics up to .04 inches thick. To give commercial printers access to folding carton printing, more sheetfed presses feature large transfer cylinders and designs that minimize or eliminate ink offsetting and tracking. Very large-format sheetfed presses, declared "dead" years ago, are making a comeback based on features that reduce setup times and increase run speeds. Supplier KBA introduced its huge 59 x 80-inch Rapida 205 with the latest level of automation and ability to run stocks from .004 inches to .055 inches thick.
drupa 2004 had a sizeable number of specialized sheetfed offset presses with integrated new features and finishing stations. The presses were for market niches ranging from printing on heavy plastic sheets to security and document printing. Heidelberg and several other suppliers offered punching, die cutting, perforating and numbering stations on some models. MAN Roland demonstrated its 29 x 41-inch Roland 700 with an integrated cold foil application station.
At drupa 2004, it was clear that past predictions about web presses displacing sheetfed machines haven't materialized. Static or declining demand for some key web offset press products, such as newspapers, magazines, catalogs and directories was cited by web offset press suppliers at the show as continuing problems. Dramatic improvements in sheetfed press productivity and versatility evident at the event, combined with declining run sizes and the cost of controlling emissions from gas-fired dryers, will continue to constrain sales of commercial web offset presses. That doesn't mean web offset press technology improvements have stopped. drupa 2004 had several roll-to-signature models so extensively automated that operators could accomplish typical plate, ink profile and signature size changes from the central control console.
A new 38.5-inch wide model LS-100 packaging offset press print tower with size-change sleeves was displayed by RDP Marathon. The uniqueness of the company's Sleeve Offset Lithographic Independent Drive SOLID™ technology is an adaptation of plate and blanket sleeves to a modified 3-cylinder variable-size press insert, a single servomotor drive for both the plate and blanket cylinders and retention of a press driveshaft. Users have unlimited sleeve size choices from 24 inches to 36 inches print repeat, or the press can have several different sizes of conventional print inserts. Print towers also can accept flexo or waterless offset inserts. The first multicolor press with RDP Marathon SOLID technology is scheduled for installation in a European label plant.
Muller Martini introduced its Alprinta series of variable sized offset press available in 20.5 inch and 29.1 inch web widths for commercial printing, direct mail, packaging materials and labels. This is a completely servo-motor driven press with either conventional 3-cylinder size inserts or special cartridges designed for use of plate and blanket sleeves.
A variety of new and updated workflow software was on display at drupa 2004, the largest printing show in the world.
