At drupa 24, Heidelberg shared some details about the inner workings of the “Peak Performance” generation of its flagship offset press for packaging and commercial production, the Speedmaster XL 106. Patrick Henry reports.The evolution of a printing press isn’t easy to appreciate just by examining the machine from the outside – most of the technical advancements are internal engineering refinements in places where only engineers can find them.
At drupa, however, Heidelberg shared some details about the inner workings of the “Peak Performance” generation of its flagship offset press for packaging and commercial production, the Speedmaster XL 106.
The B1+ (29.53 x 41.73-in.) sheetfed press gets its ultra-fast running speed and equally rapid changeovers from a combination of mechanical and software upgrades that are designed to automate as many machine functions as possible from feeder to delivery.
Heidelberg calls the concept “Push to Stop”: making the press capable of autonomous production with a minimum of hands-on input and judgment calls by the operator, whose main task becomes monitoring the quality of the run instead of chasing it with tweaks and guesswork.
This is achieved in part by replacing conventional touch points with automated systems that carry out routine press tasks more efficiently than human operators can.
For example, the Hycolor XL inking unit and dampening system optimizes its presets before the first sheet enters the press, cutting setup waste and accelerating sheet OK.
A new press-side coating center changes coating plates, screen rollers, and coatings fully automatically from job to job. The drudge work of washup has been streamlined by an automated assistant that looks at the L*a*b values of the ink to determine exactly how much washup will be needed from one color to the next.
Heidelberg says that the Peak Performance Speedmaster XL 106 on display at drupa contains about 200 changes made to the preceding generation of the press. One of them consists of bearers on the printing units that now can clean and lubricate themselves. New sidelays, a direct-drive feeder, high-volume cam rollers, high-speed gripper bars, improved motor drive
The Peak Performance generation of Heidelberg’s Speedmaster XL 106 in demonstration at drupa. Speedmaster XL 106 der Peak Performance-Klasse auf der drupa and braking, and augmented sensors all contribute to driving the press at speeds up to 21,000 sph in perfecting mode for commercial work.
The software element of Peak Performance is Heidelberg’s Prinect workflow, embedded in the Prinect Press Center XL 4 console of the Speedmaster XL 106. Heidelberg says that AI enhancements to Prinect include new assists for managing air settings, controlling the coater, and detecting and automatically extracting bad sheets.
Heidelberg introduced the Push to Stop concept on which the Peak Performance generation of the Speedmaster XL 106 is based in 2016. The company says that thanks to advancements since then, Push to Stop enables production to take place without any operator intervention except stopping the run as the operator determines. This happens, according to Heidelberg, by virtue of eliminating 98% of the manual interventions that occur in commercial production that isn’t based on Push to Stop.
From the point of view of labor, the overall goal of Push to Stop in the Peak Performance Speedmaster XL 106 is to drive maximum press output regardless of the skill set of the operator. The company points out that the extensive automation features of Push to Stop also automatically boost the performance of less experienced operators, helping them to produce more printing at a lower cost per sheet.(This article originally ran in the June 7 edition of the drupa daily.)
