Heidelberg is full operation at its new UK head office in Stockley Park in west London having completed the move from its home of more than 30 years in Brentford.
The new premises are right up to date, light and airy with a good communications systems but with limited demonstration space for equipment. It has, however, managed to bring in the two Versafire digital presses that Heidelberg sells, matched format guillotine and automated folder for demonstrations and training.
But major press demonstrations were not part of the plan. Even in the year leading up to deciding on the move, most demonstrations took place in Germany because of the difficulty in reaching Brentford and the better spread of machines that can be shown in operation there.
Instead the new UK head office is for back room sales support staff, training, and initial sales discussions with a vast screen able to be connected directly to the Wiesloch factory.
Training is offered by a press simulator and for colour management beneath D50 lighting. This is already in demand. “Colour management courses are our most popular,” says prepress specialist Paul Chamberlain. “We like to have both someone from the press and someone from prepress on colour management.”
There is a smart print shop training area with online connectivity to the Heidelberg factory in Wiesloch where the demonstration facilities have undergone a major shake up. What used to be separate demonstration facilities for packaging and for commercial printing (the latter opened in 2019) have been combined into a joint show room with three presses for packaging matched by three machines for commercial printing.
This responds to growing interest in companies crossing over, commercial going to carton in the main, that Heidelberg is seeing, says Ryan Miles, Heidelberg UK managing director.
The press line up there is supported by finishing, three platens and three folder gluers, to show all options for cartons, including the EasyMatrix and Diana Easy for companies moving into carton production for the first time.
There is no expectation that printers will place orders from remote demonstrations, but it does allow the company to show off its latest developments, for example the Plate to Unit robot system that has been installed at German online printers handling a continual flow of shot run orders. The system can handle 17 makereadies and plate changes on an eight-unit B1 press, printing 500 sheets between makereadies, in an hour.
This volume of plates is beyond the scope of a single platesetter. Consequently multiple platesetters feed a Nela line for bending and sorting to load a cassette which is then taken to the side of the press to a lift into position.
In most instances a full plate change to sellable sheets will take 1’30” with 100 waste sheets. For some of the online printers, this can be reduced to the point that colour reaches predetermined parameters, usually around 60 sheets, and with automatic ejection until the good sheets kick in.
A set of overhead grippers lift plates from the cassette with the correct plate identified by a QR code, placing them into position. At the change, the system takes the used plates and returns them to the cassette storage system. An advantage of this automation is a reduction in scratching and surface damage to a plate which can cause expensive disruption to a high volume print operation.
The expansion of automation is a major trend for Heidelberg. It has installed seven high speed P stackers along with folders in the UK, says Miles. The Heidelberg Assistant, available since 2019 as a tool to monitor production via an iPad, is being superseded next year by H-Plus, a cloud based application that expands the functionality of Assistant through Prinect apps to extend the data that can be analysed for greater interaction. This is currently in beta with 30 customers worldwide, four of these in the UK.
While the front and most back office functions moved en masse from Brentford, the physical storage of 6,000 spare parts and more than 3,000 consumable lines moved to Mini Clipper, a logistics specialist in Bedfordshire. Heidelberg says that 98% orders, including those received via its shop platform, are now processed for next day delivery, having suffered from bedding in issues when Amazon tempted warehouse staff to its own operations for a £1/hour extra.
This has settled through with Mini Clipper demonstrating familiarity with Heidelberg and its customers to achieve the sort of accuracy and speed of response that means customers no longer notice a difference.
