A delegation of UK web offset printers has visited Mazzucchelli in Italy to see the Goss Sunday 5000 96pp web in action.
Representatives from Artisan, Pindar, St Ives, and Woodford Litho joined the trip to the Bergamo-based company, which installed the first press of this type in the world last year.
Mazzucchelli managing director Pierluigi Guerini explained that the firm had won a number of major contracts for work such as retail promotional materials that were previously printed gravure, because the Sunday 5000 offered far greater flexibility for versioning.
"We won a big order recently just because of this capability. It's a seven- to eight-million run, but with 50 edition changes. The two 48pp format is perfect for supermarkets."
Around 50% of the firm's output is exported to other countries on the continent, with France its main export market.
The 2.86m-wide press at Mazzucchelli has a 590mm cut-off and a maximum speed of 40,000iph due to the folder configuration chosen by the company. With a different folder setup the press can run at 45,000iph. During the visit the 5000 was producing 72,000 48pp sections per hour, running into a Rima inline finishing system.
"With this 96pp press format we are achieving a higher percentage utilisation of the web width," stated Goss International vice president of sales in Europe, Jean Segura.
"We made an analysis of what is truly being run on the 72pp machines in the market and they never run the full web width. They are always running 64pp, and sometimes smaller."
Dave Williams, Pindar technical director, said: "I'm more impressed than I thought I would be. I was completely surprised by how stable it was working with reels that size."
Artisan operations director Gavin Hall added: "It's a fantastic piece of kit and I can see now that it does have a place in the market. On that 96pp scale I was wondering how things would work, but evidently it does. The crew were handling the plates and rollers with no more difficulty than on a 48 or 64pp machine."
A Sunday 5000 is already running at Altair in Spain, part of Circle Printers, and Germany’s Stark Druck will begin installation of its press imminently.
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