New press drives business at Shinkosha Printing

It didn't take long for Shinkosha Printing Co., Ltd to enjoy the fruits of their smart investment. No sooner than the new ROLAND 708 press commenced full production production efficiency increased twofold.

The positive trend continues, much to the satisfaction of Mr. Shintaro Fukuda, the company's president.

“This is not a surprise to us at all,” Mr. Fukuda said “because high quality printing and short lead times are once again guaranteed by Manroland's world leading sophisticated printing technologies”.

Founded in 1919, Shinkosha is a wellknown book printer in Japan. With more than a century’s history in the industry, the company specializes in printing scientific and medical books, periodicals and dictionaries – all of which require highly stable and consistent print quality. As Shinkosha attaches great importance to print quality and productivity, the company received two awards from the CIPPI (International Print Production Innovation) Awards in 2009 for “Most innovative use of process automation technology in an implementation” and “Best Process Automation Implementation — Asia/Pacific”.

How does Shinkosha maintain their high reputation?

“We've learnt from more than 100 years in the industry, that adopting the world’s advanced printing technology is the answer” Mr. Fukuda said.

Manroland has been a partner of Shinkosha for more than four decades and, according to Mr. Fukuda, has played a very important role in the steady development of the company. Its cooperation with Manroland started in 1978 when it acquired its first Manroland press. Since then, Shinkosha – which is based in Shibuya, Tokyo – installed additional ROLAND presses each time market demand increased.

The new printing machine a ROLAND 708 Evolution is equipped with a wide range of automatic functions including InlineColorPilot and IntegrationPilot 2.0.

DirectDrive Technology

It can reduce make-ready time by up to 60% compared to a conventional sheet-fed offset press, as the directly driven plate cylinders allow all printing plates to be changed simultaneously.

InlineColorPilot

This is an automatic color control system that helps the operator to maintain the color consistency throughout the print run. It scans a sheet within 12 seconds and adjusts the color within 2 seconds; it automatically measures and regulates ink density in the press during production. The results? Improved print quality and productivity, reduced waste rate of substrates and increased ecological efficiency.

IntegrationPilot 2.0

With IntegrationPilot 2.0, job preparation and machine scheduling can be carried out centrally in the office. Moreover, the press can be integrated in the print shop workflow optimized by CIP3 hot folder or the JDF interfaces. Consequently, errors in the work processes are identified early and thus eliminated. So it helps the company to reduce its make-ready time by up to 25% by automatic color presetting and lessens waste by up to 25%. “Thanks to IntegrationPilot 2.0, we are now able to network among the three machines. My 20 year dream of automation, visualization and remote monitoring has come true” said Mr. Fukuda.