Business News
Another Confirmation of recent strategic choices for Pixartprinting
Friday 25. May 2012 - Drupa has always been the stage companies choose for presenting their novelties, real innovations marking the stages in the history of graphic arts. And Pixartprinting, European leader in the web to print sector, certainly could not miss it.
A delegation of 20 managers and department heads of Pixartprinting visited the event, accompanied by Matteo Rigamonti (chairman) and Alessandro Tenderini (general manager. “It was 1995 when I went to my first Drupa event in my camper van and although the trip was tiring, it was love at first sight,” Rigamonti says. “In those years the printing world was a little Eden: there were plenty of orders, customers who paid on time and polite salespeople. Friendly competition prevailed among gentlemen. And in this marvellous climate back in 1995, it was at Drupa that the history of the digital age began. The technology was still green then and had to wait until the 2000 event before presenting good performances.”
Since then 3 Drupa events have come and gone and we are now at Drupa 2012. How did it go? “Everyone was talking about Landa, but for the time being in my opinion it’s definitely a futuristic technology we can hope will have the same course as digital technology from Drupa 1995 until today. There were no big revelations that took us by surprise,” affirms Rigamonti. In fact Pixartprinting has long been considered a landmark company by the most important producers of solutions for graphic arts. This stems from the fact that one of the strengths of the Venetian web to print business is its avant-garde production department – which to stay on the topic has been dubbed by someone as “Little Drupa” – equipped with last generation systems that are constantly upgraded. “For this reason producers often give us a preview of their novelties. This is why the new products at Drupa 2012 were not so new to us: essentially all solutions we could be interested in have already been installed on our premises at Quarto d’Altino,” Tenderini explains. The big novelty when it comes to offset, meaning the new Komori Lithrone GL 840 P 8-colour 70×100, complete with the new synchronised plates change, has been in operation at Pixartprinting since last December. It was the first one to be installed in the world and was purchased before the presentation brochure came out. The second model was delivered in February and both have been running at full capacity for months.
Tenderini confirms that he is very satisfied, “The figures we are recording with the new Komori are to say the least mind-blowing: 20 copies for make-ready; 12 make-readies per hour and we think that we’ll reach 15 soon; 1,000 tonnes of paper per month; less than 2 minutes to have the first sheet we can sell and a break-even point on the digital press that is truly amazing; 17 copies for posters, 150 for flyers and brochures.”
Is this the rebirth of offset?
“Certainly. As far as we’re concerned today offset printing represents the technology we’re putting more into because based on our figures (roughly 3,000 items handled every day) it allows us to be even more competitive and faster,” Tenderini points out. To strengthen the offset department further Pixartprinting has purchased two new basysPrint CtP 860x platesetters which will allow for producing 42 plates per hour. The first one was installed during Drupa; the second will be installed in June. Together with the model we have already, with these three systems the company can make 106 plates per hour, and so can increase the production capacity allowed by the new offset machines.
What about digital printing?
“As regards digital printing there are certainly some interesting new products such as the new Epson SurePress L featuring a new reel printing system also already in operation. And we are putting a lot of effort into developing our new labels department,” Tenderini continues. He then adds, “Another interesting digital novelty is the Durst Rho P10 family. It’s a highly innovative technology that allows for obtaining fine art print quality with resolutions up to 1000 dpi. Obviously this was not new to us either. Because of the long-standing relationship tying us to Durst we had already seen the machine and are seriously considering the possibility of replacing our Durst systems, meaning the roll to roll and the flatbed, with new P10s”.