Photogravure in Slovenská Grafia has been done for after 55 years
The progressive offset technology gives to a company the possibility to respond to the customer demands in a more flexible way. Slovenská Grafia has been executing an extraordinary investment as high as 22 million Euro since January 2011. Bratislava 19 January 2011.
Company Slovenská Grafia a.s. continues its investment intent aiming at restructuring and economising the production. Despite the long-lasting recession in the printing industry it is searching for new ways to more flexible production. In 2011 it will invest into two new high-capacity rotary offset printing machines Lithoman from company manroland AG, which will substitute for the photogravure printing machines. Two powerful offset facilities meet by their quality and operation the increasing customer demands. Leading position in the printing market of Central Europe has allowed to the Slovak printing works to launch the investment amounting to 22 m. EUR.
Developments in the printing technology and requests for updating the information content constantly raise the flexibility and multi-media complexity of processing the printing orders. “Photogravure is applied in printing with the circulation of hundreds of thousand to million pieces, thus hardly anybody can affords such printing nowadays. Therefore we have invested into the technology suitable for printing in high to medium circulations,“ Martin Ilavský, CEO of Slovenská Grafia, explains. “At the same time it makes demands also on our printing art and precision.“
The company decided to replace the machines after a deep analysis. “Performance of the offset press is spectacular. Both Lithoman machines produce over 5.5 million A4 pages an hour, which means the potential press capacity increases by one third to almost 75 thousand tonnes of printed paper a year,“ M. Ilavský complements. The decision was empowered by concrete promises from company manroland AG, regarding meeting a plenty of quality criteria, as well as the waste paper.
The manufacturer’s guarantee of the equipment instantaneous availability, as well as its capability to really fulfil the performance parameters agreed, which are higher than in similar machines installed, are also of importance. Local support of the equipment operation, range and availability of services and care rendered are crucial. “We are glad we can support Slovenská Grafia in maintaining and gaining demanding customers, “ the executive sales manager of company manroland AG Ulrich Pfefferer explains. The facilities shall be replaced gradually. The first rotary printing machine that will start printing will be the 48-page rotary press Lithoman at the end of summer. By the end of the first quarter 2012 the new high-capacity equipment, the new 64-page press Lithoman, should be also in operation.
The most significant parameter is the customer satisfaction. “We’ve made a step towards this direction by introducing the virtual proof-sheet in 2010. It has brought the possibility of approving the printing quality in a much shorter time“, the production director Peter Kosík emphasises. Slovenská Grafia as the first one in the region introduced the novelty, which has been valued by the customers and the competitors have also come to get inspired. “Manrold offset technology is highly powerful and disposes of the latest spectrophotometric facility to compare and check the colourful space between the customer’s template and the printout itself. Thus it will save time necessary for the new order to be prepared regarding the production and exchange of printing mould“, P. Kosík adds.
