Being bold on the fold

Folders transform the printed sheet and technology has transformed those folders. Now is the time to take a look.

During the cull of Heidelberg’s post press operations, it decided to keep the folders division while closing its stitching, binding and packaging machine production. The action taken here shows that the company has no sentimentality about holding on to unprofitable businesses. There is it seems something about folders.

It has not escaped unscathed. Heidelberg will cut 50% of the staff from the division but has not said yet, what if any impact this might have on products. It is a product line up that has been modernised from at the top end ultra high speed folders to ultra swift makeready models at the entry level. The shingle feeding system for the high speed TX82 has earned a technology innovation award in the US and it deserves it. This is a changed way of feeding paper to the folder to allow it to run much faster, matching the 18,000 sheets an hour of the XL106 presses. But there are adjustments to be made, not all papers will run at this speed for example.

The sheet is propelled into the first buckle plate, where instead of folding the sheet in half, it folds only to the depth of the shingle overlap, say a third of the length of the sheet. Concertina folds follow until the centrefold is produced as the final fold. This is the source of the speed, but means that printers must adopt a different attitude towards impositions and product design. The basic folded section is an 18pp signature, not a 16pp one. “This is the XL folder,” says Thomas Krischke at an open day last year. “The TX82 offers a differentiated configuration for industrial high performance production.”

Heidelberg’s great rival at the top of the folding market is MBO where a complete rethink of the folding process has led to the M80 design, where the folder is a conceived as a series of modules which can be changed in the field as requirements change over the life time of the folder. It is not unusual for a folder to have a modular design such that it can be ordered with options on the number of plates and style of feeder for example, but the M80 goes beyond this.

Freidheim International’s folder product manager Stuart Bamford says that reaction to the M80 at Ipex “was quite astonishing”. The styling of the folder is quite different from conventional U-shaped machines. All elements can be changed in the field to result in a completely different machine to that first installed. The idea is to remove the risk from making an investment in a market that is shifting at an ever increasing pace. If demands change, so too can the folder.

This idea might revive what has been a flagging market where over the last three or four years investment in new folders has reached a low ebb. Prior to that replacement of two or three old, slow and difficult to set up folders with one machine to the latest specifications was relatively common and makes good business sense. Now says Bamford many have been trying to stretch the life of existing folders.

These are costly in terms of maintenance, something that new machines covered by warranty and with remote access for software upgrades and interrogation, are not.

And he adds that all at once there has been a revival of interest in folders, whether down to the futuristic M80 (there is also an M60 for B2 sheets) or not. “We are getting a good number of inquiries every week,” he adds. “But while we offer full automation, in the majority of cases people do not need it and we do not want to oversell a machine.”

There is a steep price to pay for full automation, which adds a more significant proportion to the cost of the machine than it would to a press, perhaps doubling the price of a standard folder. “When we talk a customer through the process, there needs to be quite a lot of makereadies per shift to justify the automation,” says Bamford. And where the printer is sticking to one or two formats of work, makeready adjustments will be minimal. “If the printer is running 16pp sections all day, they will not need that sort of automation,” he agrees.

This covers what Heidelberg has described as the industrialised printers. For those which might have once been called jobbing printers, but which are worthy of a description that emphasises flexibility, customer focus and service, and a willingness to go beyond cut sheet printing into digital media and wide format, there will be a constant flow of new job types, papers and formats to accommodate. Most are B2 printers and an automated folder is essential.

It is where IFS is aiming with the Horizon folder range. “There is a limited number of companies that are running thousands of sheets through a folder to produce the same sections. Most printers have to change to different sizes and different quantities all the time,” says Alan Harrison. “These printers want their folders to help become more versatile.”

The difficulty in setting a folder, in changing papers and formats will reflect in pricing for non standard jobs and the ability of a printer to take on different types of work. If new generation UV curing takes off in commercial printers there will be a steep rise in the requirement for folding directly from the press for example.

IFS is selling a greater proportion of automated folders where only the first calliper needs setting with a sample of the paper used. All others take their measurements from this and adjust accordingly. Side lay and feeder head settings are also made automatically. He explains: “This has taken the skill away from the operator with regard to setting the machine, but experience is still needed with regard to the art of manipulating the paper to allow the folder to run trouble free.”

Semi-automatic set up uses that first measurement to start a series of prompts on the touch screen for the operator to follow. This is close to the fully automatic versions in terms of sales, but while full automation sells, there are none as yet within a full JDF network. “Where a printers is doing multiple makereadies, they can justify the increase in cost for a fully automated machine. JDF is talked about more and more and all the equipment is JDF ready, but very few have taken the option.”

Heidelberg is also aiming at this sector of the market with a range of buckle and combination folders launched this year. For the first time the folders are designated in English as BH/CH rather than TH/KH machines. The target is either customers looking for additional capacity or first time users of the Stahl range. Settings on a job can be stored and recalled for repeat jobs and while these are cheaper machines, they include proven elements from other members of the family, including the folding rollers and sheet separation system.

Heidelberg has begun installing the range in the UK with early users conforming to the target. MV Print in Middlesbrough has taken delivery of a CH66 to replace two older machines. It allows the company to take on gatefolds, six panel concertina folds and to use knives to fold eight, 16 and 32pp sections. The Magazine Printing Company in Enfield was the first in the UK with the CH66, replacing a Japanese machine. It runs from a pallet feeder almost straight from the press on short run magazine work, which means that the reduction in speed is not a handicap.

Nor will it be for digital print work, especially if digital starts to make serious incursions into B2 formats. IFS will fit TriCreaser wheels to Horizon folders to help cope with work that is sensitive to cracking, but as yet does not offer the digital only folder.

This is where companies like Morgana have been successful, coupling a simple folder to its creasing unit to create the DigiFold. As digital printing has become more demanding in terms of speed, volume and complexity, Morgana has kept pace with DigiFold Pro machines. Since its introduction in 2001 it has been consistently one of Morgana’s leading sellers, with 500 of the faster 5000P model shipped in the two years after Drupa 2008. Morgana has since increased throughput to 6,000 sheets an hour.

To date the digital market has remained at B3 format for finishing. First users of B2 presses either have to cut the sheet for further processing or add the digitally printed material to their conventional B2 folders. The future lies however in eliminating the separate folding step. Morgana has done this in B3 with the DocuFold models, Duplo and Watkiss with their bookletmakers and and in the larger size, Horizon’s StitchLiner takes in the flat sheet, folds, stitches and trims to provide a finished product.

This is happening fastest in continuous feed areas where both MBO and Heidelberg provide feeders that come between a sheeter and further finishing, a stitching device or perfect binder for example. MBO is investing heavily in new approaches to folding in the digital area, which will appear next year. “It’s a completely different way of thinking,” says Bamford.

For commercial print however, the flexibility and versatility that a standalone folder delivers will ensure its survival as long as there are sheetfed printing presses.