Horizon is underlining its conviction that robots are the future for print and print finishing by badging AMR and robot arms with its own name.
The AMR is the Japanese company’s own development and forms part of its Warehouse Control System. The approach gives tighter integration between the WCS and the robot device. Signals from a press, folder or other element of production will alert the WCS to a full paper bin or pallet and this will dispatch the robot to ‘taxi’ that work to its next destination which may be the next production step or a buffer zone.
These will make a first appearance at the Smart Factory 2026 event at Horizon’s factory in Japan at the start of November. The products introduced there will be available by the end of Q1 next year.
Among the application lines being demonstrated with printing and other partners the robots will be used for loading, moving and palletising the products in three zoned areas. There will be a new perfect binder, the BQX1, CRF1000 as a new faster creaser folder, an upgraded CABS4000R book production system and a sheet buffering unit needed as the industry evolves towards lights out production.
The BQ X-1 binder is described as “a BQ500 on steroids”. It can perfect bind a book up to 530 x530mm in format, or prepare that book for subsequent case binding. It can use hot melt or PUR glues and has the same glue tanks as the BQ500, making them interchangeable between machines.
There will be a rotary die cutter in a B2 format and upgraded creaser folder able to run at 7,000sph rather than 4,000sph. A B3 cut and stack device is designed to run from a pile and will deliver book blocks ready for binding.
The new version of the nine clamp CABS binder is connected to the BBS56 book block unit, in turn connected to an inkjet web press. A destacking device between the two can pick up individual books from a pile to feed into the binder giving a fully connected line able to produce 2,000 books an hour.
The company is promising to introduce a B1 folder to be the most automated folder on the market and linked with a a palletising robot.
In the demonstration of a fully automated lights out zone Canon will operate an iX3200 inkjet press and toner machine for covers. Palletised work is moved by an AMR into stitching lines or perfect binding connected to a wrapper with a conveyor mounted inkjet head for addressing and then into shipping.
Fujifilm provides the press running inline to a rotary die cutter while Riso, Kyocera and Konica Minolta also provide print engines to feed Horizon finishing products. An integration with Heidelberg Prinect is the key feature of the workflow zone.
Horizon has shown robots for loading pallets and for moving work at previous iterations of the Smart Factory open house, but previously used third-party robots. The key advantage of bringing robots into its product range is the ability to integrate tightly into the iCE production network.
Other partners present include HP, Hunkeler, Palamides, RMGT, Screen, Smyth, Tecnau and UltimateTech. In all the company says it will have 12 AMR robots and 13 robotic arms in operation.
UK distributor IFS is taking a handful of UK customers to the event.
