The jump from 3B to large-format - always a challenge, but the Ma-tisk printing company in Slovenia has gone one further and has the first ROLAND 900, XXL in format 7B plus to be installed. A second one is to start up at Ma-tisk in February 2008.

　　Slovenia as a printing industry trailblazer? At second glance it’s not really surprising that the first 7B plus press has been installed in this small but economically strong republic. The domestic market is not very big and so the growing printing industry is extremely export-oriented. Investments are being made to ensure international competitiveness and the Ma-tisk printing company in Maribor, which was established more than 200 years ago, is no exception. Instrumental for the company’s success are Technical Manager Gorazd Petrič, and 180 employees working three shifts six days a week. Ma-tisk belongs to the Krater Group which has its headquarters in Ljubljana and whose printing companies produce newspapers, magazines, and books as well as packaging.

　　Active all over Europe

　　The formula for success: thanks to the latest large-format press technology and an exemplary internal workflow, Ma-tisk has fast turnaround times and low unit costs. This enables the company to penetrate the markets all over Europe for its core segments of book and commercial printing. The customer portfolio shows how successfully and professionally Ma-tisk operates. A ‘European Community’ no less; 75% of Ma-tisk’s jobs are for customers in various EU countries, mainly in Scandinavia and the Benelux region, and the remaining 25% are for customers in Slovenia.

　　7B plus a key success factor

　　A key success factor is the recently installed four-colour ROLAND 900, XXL. When asked why he decided in favour of this specific press, Petrič gives a clear answer: “I expect fast production, high quality and reliability.” And this is exactly what the 7B plus format provides with its sheet size of 1260 x 1620 mm, which gives a productivity advantage of up to 20% compared to the 7B format. With DIN A4 production, the five percent greater area on the sheet means 20% more pages: 48 instead of 40. And also in book printing where formats are not necessarily DIN-based, productivity advantages of 15 to 20 percent are realistic.

　　Faster and more economical book production

　　Success is calculable. Ma-tisk worked out that the new 7B plus format would bring economic benefits. Around 20% of the company’s jobs have DIN A4 pages, often 48-page signatures in long runs. However, other books for a customer in France that have smaller page formats can also be produced economically. As a result, a high proportion of book production with average run lengths of 3000 copies has been switched from 3B format long perfectors to the XXL format. Ma-tisk’s philosophy is to carry out all stages of production in-house.

　　Declining run lengths and ultra-short delivery times

　　Petrič has to meet his customers’ requirements: “Although book printing involves many production stages, our clients often demand extremely short delivery times, on the average we only have ten days to complete a book order and that includes distribution. Therefore we need dependable and fast presses.” Only with speedy make ready and production processes can the current demand for short runs and fast turnaround times be met economically. And so large-format presses with short make ready times the equal of 3B format presses are a must. CIP3 workflows and make ready time-reducing QuickChange options make this possible.

　　Petrič insists on quality in all respects

　　For Ma-tisk, assured quality and secure production are essential. Petrič insists on “the highest quality that is possible today.” This tallies with MAN Roland’s own credo, one that the press manufacturer has been proven to abide by. Petrič also insists on “reliability and excellent service.” And this is just what he gets from Franci Jeglič of MAN Roland Slovenia with his team. Ma-tisk has been very pleased with this so far: “Everything has been perfect which is what I expect all the time”, says Petrič. The press installation went very well, as did the staff training in the MAN Roland Training Center in Offenbach.

（Gorazd Petrič, Technical Manager at Ma-tisk, and Thomas Walla, Project Manager at MAN Roland Offenbach, are very pleased with the successful large-format press start-up）

（The Ma-tisk printers on “their” new and ultra-modern ROLAND 900, XXL in format 7B plus）