At the Hunkeler Innovationdays taking place in Lucerne, Müller Martini and Hunkeler will showcase a complex all-in-one system for softcover products from the printing press to the trimming robot with a downstream sorting line following the motto, “From the white roll to the finished book.” With the production of eight different books in the 3-up-rolls and 2-up-rolls process, the automated switching of book formats and cut-off lengths will be demonstrated live.
“Book manufacturers,” says Ronald Reddmann, Product Manager Softcover Systems at Müller Martini, “are currently facing multiple challenges. Declining print volumes down to “book of one” runs require a high degree of automation, ultra-fast setup times and highly flexible production systems. The skilled worker shortage requires complete self-adjusting inline systems controlled by a workflow system, like the proven Connex from Müller Martini, that minimize manual intervention and intermediate handling. Growing costs for energy and space call for lower costs by using state-of-the-art energy-efficient drives and control components, for reduced production waste rates (by avoiding producing faulty products to begin with) and for a compact machine layout.”
An all-in-one system for high format variability
Müller Martini and Hunkeler provide the answer to all these questions at this year’s Hunkeler Innovationdays – in the form of an end-to-end solution like the world has never seen before in this configuration. It is made of
a digital high-performance HP Advantage 2200 web press running 244 meters per minute with a web width of up to 558 millimeters (22 inches), a Hunkeler Starbook Plowfolder with a productivity of up to 2,000 individual books or stacks per hour, a Vareo PRO perfect binder with cover ejection (in the rare event that the covers coming from an HP Indigo and the contents don’t match), a drying path, an InfiniTrim trimming robot and a sorting line, where the finished books are output sorted and in stacks.
“What truly sets our all-in-one system apart from the competition,” emphasizes Marco Kunz, Product Manager at Hunkeler, “is that each of the three sub-solutions (printing press/Starbook Plowfolder/Vareo PRO with InfiniTrim) can change over to a new job extremely fast, and is highly flexible in terms of format and material.”
Eight different demo products
Predestined for book-of-one to medium-sized print volumes, the Starbook Plowfolder, characterized by outstanding book block quality, interruption-free high-speed production and maximum format flexibility, was presented as a world premiere by Hunkeler at the HID 2023. Now, it will be presented for the first time ever producing live in combination with a printing press and two finishing systems.
At the Müller Martini booth, the solution will alternate in producing eight different softcover books: four A5 books with between 368 and 396 pages and a book thickness between 23 and 24.75 millimeters in the 3-up-rolls process, along with four A4 books with between 232 and 267 pages and a book thickness between 14.5 and 16.7 millimeters in the 2-up-rolls process. The live demos won’t focus on book-of-one production, instead highlighting small runs of around 25.
Developed by Hunkeler, the DynaCut feature dynamically changes the cut-off length and the formats. The Müller Martini Connex workflow system is responsible for imposition and monitoring.
www.mullermartini.com
