Designers and engineers from Italian coffee machine specialists Gaggia are working to create a new interface for press operation.
The impetus for the project came from the revelation that young people would rather work as baristas than in the printing industry. The first implementation of the Espresso press interface is likely to be ready for Drupa.
“We have much in common with the printing industry,” says Mario Console, spokesman for Gaggia. “We both deal with ultra short runs, ours being the single-shot espresso, we have the longa when more is needed, the cappuccino for a value added finish and the flat white, which is like printing on uncoated papers and boards. Each requires a different setting just as it does for a coffee machine.”
Console, head of Gaggis’s R&D department, visited Labelexpo last autumn with his brother Luigi, a former plumber who now runs a label printing business. There the pair heard Gallus managing director Dario Albaniti explain why the new Gallus One needed to be as automated as possible. This was because of the difficulty of recruitment in the edge of cities and towns where print businesses are located because young people had headed for the centre to work in the hospitality sector. including independent coffee shops and franchises.
The brothers understood the argument, and realised too that even with automation, the user interface for a printing press was far from intuitive. Changes were necessary.
They began implementing their ideas at a printer in Conduoncemore in northern Italy. This had a Speedmaster 74 which was rarely used because of the challenge of finding skilled staff to run it. The brothers reverse engineered the control panel above the delivery of the press to introduce controls that were akin to those on a coffee machine. Instead of changing steam pressure, that control now sets the speed of the press; instead of selecting how fine the beans are ground, the same control sets the paper format and changes the gripper settings; instead of foaming milk, that device now controls air settings throughout the press.
They also decided to incorporate a crucial element of the espresso coffee machine – the ability to deliver a single shot of caffeine power for the operator.
The result was a revelation. From being the least popular press in the factory, the old Speedmaster is now its most popular, and most profitable. Thanks to the caffeine boost, makeready times have vanished and waste sheets eliminated. The business has a queue of people wanting to join whenever a vacancy is advertised.
As news of the project filtered upwards to Germany where the challenge of finding skilled staff is sure to be a key focus of Drupa stands, the pair were approached to put together a more formal project to include the coffee making interface into thinking about press console design. “Some companies have added a cup holder in their console,” says Aperile Firstifulli, managing director of the printing company Stampa Idioti, “and they think this is helpful to the operator. It is not. On the other hand to combine the printing press and coffee machine adds something so much more to the business. It enables printers to diversify in ways that were simply not possible before. It makes recruitment of young people so much easier when we can offer recruits the promise of single estate Blue Mountain or Ethiopian Yirgacheffe beans. We think that the Espresso press is the future of printing. All thanks to Super Mario and his brother!”
