Drupa is less than 100 days away with major exhibitors beginning to hint at technology they plan to demonstrate at the event.
Heidelberg last week launched its Drupa dedicated website with an introductory video and the first content relating to what the company considers the four overarching themes: staffing, sustainability, competitiveness and digitisation. Additional content will be released every couple of weeks between now and 28 May when Drupa opens its doors.
The Heidelberg stand in Hall 1 will be dominated by a 360º theatre where these topics will be explored along with Heidelberg’s approach to tackling them. The plan of the show also features vast monitors which will link to the Wiesloch for live demonstrations from the showroom there. That showroom gains additional billing as for four days of Drupa, 29 May and 4-6 June, Heidelberg will be welcoming printers to tour the facility which has nine Speedmaster presses in operation and the Boardmaster flexo carton press.
It is not feasible to show this at Drupa due its size, nor selections of every possible press configuration. The company, however, does say it plans to show a commercial press with robots plate loading and a new version of the Cutstar and an end to end packaging workflow featuring the 21,000sph version of the Speedmaster XL106.
Koenig & Bauer also plans to demonstrate an end to end packaging workflow, and how it can capture operational data from the line for AI technology to improve efficiency. It is not specifying which presses it will show, though the Varijet 106 sheetfed inkjet press, now a ready for shipping product, is likely to be among them.
Komori is less reticent saying that it plans to launch a new “environmentally friendly offset press” and a “next generation digital printing machine”. Its current line up includes the B2 IS29, a co development with Konica Minolta and the NS40 a B1 press using Landa’s nanographic technology.
The theme across the presses and MBO folders and CoBo Stack robotic arm is Connected Automation the company says. It is staging an open house a few weeks before Drupa at its Utrect showroom (17 April).
RMGT will have the 970 press, a format that it believes will appeal to B1 commercial printers thanks to a low cost of ownership and low energy consumption per printed page.
A little more is known about headline machines from digital press providers. Canon will show a prototype of the iX1700 entry level inkjet press; Ricoh will show the VC80000 continuous feed inkjet machine and the Z75 B2 inkjet press; Screen will feature the TruepressJet 560; Fuji will have the Revoria GC12500 and a continuous feed inkjet machine and HP plans to demonstrate eight production lines, but is as yet providing no details of how these are arranged between inkjet and Indigo, corrugated, label and commercial print applications. Three months from now, all will become clear.
