Manroland Goss and HP Pagewide have formalised an agreement around supply of finishing equipment for the company’s PageWide T490 press. The two have worked together, but separately, on a number of sites including Bertlesmann in Germany and Clays in the UK.
The deal means that HP can sell the FoldLine and FormerLine finishing units as part of a packaged deal to a customer and then take responsibility for supporting that installation. The FoldLine is a unit that delivers a range of formats from the 42in web press, suitable for book blocks, newspapers and stitched commercial print products. The FormerLine is the unit to deliver book blocks at the full speed of the press – up to 300m/min. This can be 7,000 books an hour for a 160pp title. It is cost competitive for runs up to 10,000 copies.
In use it has proved highly reliable says Manroland Goss managing director John Ellis. It has been in place since 2018 “and has been running flat out since” he says. Bertelman’s experience is similar. It runs three T490 inkjet presses with FormerLine systems and across the three, print subsidiary GGP Media produces more than 400,000 books a week, amounting to 11 million signatures and 135 million pages for 190 titles, with a paper wastage of just 4% over a run. High speed automatic splicing is necessary to achieve this performance.
The printed web is passed over the required number of plowfold units and into a variable length cutter to deliver the ready to bind blocks. It is capable of zigzag, wrap folds, parallel and gatefolds. Maximum product is 250x420mm and 80mm thick.
The FoldLine uses a pin type folder to produce tabloid and broadsheet newspapers and semi commercial products at up to 300m/min. Both units can link to HP’s T200, T300 and T400 series machines with Pecom-X used to make the adjustments needed for different product formats. It will also suit the new T500 high speed press for book printing.
Lakeside Book Company has only completed installation of a T500 with FormerLine at Harrisonburg in the US in recent weeks. This comes hard on the heels of commissioning of a 64pp Manroland Goss Lithoman for book printing at the company’s plant in Ohio.
Ellis stresses that the struggles of Manroland Sheetfed have nothing to do with the web and digital print company, though it has been involved in supplying the colour control system used by the Roland 700 and it can provide spares for the sheetfed presses.
The contracted deal between the two businesses does not make Manroland Goss the exclusive supplier of inline finishing equipment for the HP PageWide presses. The smaller machines can run inline to a variety of systems while Magnum Digital Solutions is supported for the wider web presses. Manroland Goss though has the signed partnership contract.
Barbara McManus, VP and general manager of HP PageWide, says: “Working with partners like Manroland Goss we are able to provide a complete solution that allows printers to move more work from inefficient, costly analogue production into a digital environment.”
