Heidelberg goes digital

The world’s leading manufacturer of sheetfed offset printing presses with over 15,000 units sold per annum worldwide, has established a new project team under the name of Linoprint to develop customised inkjet systems aimed initially at the pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and beverages industries as well as contract packers and converters. Whilst Linoprint will effectively operate as an OEM, most of the component technology is already resident within Heidelberg itself – for example, the digital systems were developed on the basis of the control technology that Heidelberg uses to build its CtP image-setter.

This, however, excludes the piezo drop-ondemand printhead. Although the company is keen to stress that it has no strategic alliance to any one specific manufacturer, printheads are currently being sourced from Konica Minolta and Panasonic in the mono and 4-colour configurations respectively and with a capability of outputting at 60m / min. Once a period of field-testing has been completed, Linoprint anticipates commercialisation in early 2009, with a targeted 10 – 15 installations completed within the following twelve months. Whilst these will initially be constrained to the mono solution only, an extension into fullcolour is anticipated ‘in the very near future,’ says sales & marketing director Karl-Heinz Walther.

‘We’ve been able to establish this project very quickly, and over the past nine months have been working closely with packaging machine manufacturers within whose existing systems we believe we can best integrate our printing modules into the production process. ‘Co-operation has already been agreed with one major packaging company. In addition, the Linoprint team has also held discussions with a number of bluechip global brands incl. Coca-Cola; Johnson & Johnson and Proctor & Gamble, as well as major pharmaceuticals like GSK, Pfizer and Bayer,’ added Walther. Principal packaging applications will be folding cartons, labels and blister packs. Whilst it is quite clear that building sales within the packaging sector will be heavily dependent upon the door-opening power of the Heidelberg reputation, the decision to operate under the Linoprint name is apparently intended as a way of avoiding confusion with the company’s core sheetfed business. Nor will be system be demonstrated as part of Heidelberg’s participation at next month’s Drupa exhibition, confirmed Karl- Heinz Walther.

Whilst there can be no doubting either Heidelberg’s positive commitment to the Linoprint project or indeed its ability to deliver, it is nevertheless a little surprising not to see such a powerful brand name attached to the project upfront. In assessing the prospects for digital packaging print as compared with commercial print applications, Linoprint senior VP business development Wolfgang Boppel noted the increasing focus upon low-volume runs and retail driven T2M supply chain issues that could not be otherwise resolved by conventional outputting technology.